escalator over the hill

Posted by: daviemacdonald | July 18, 2011

Red Alert 3 Conspiracy &The Russian Revolution a lesson 4 2011

I wrote this blog directly in response to an article by the ex Premier of NSW Bob Carr published in his blog “Thought lines” and also to show how there is a history of falsifications and distortions in the press. This feeding of falsehood is dished up to us on a daily basis by the media. A simple examination of history reveals many examples where we have been completely hoodwinked by the mainstream media and where popular and democratically governments have been overthrown by military intervention (coup or invasion) by the “West”.

Symbol of the Russian Worker & Peasant

Just some examples included in my life time are Vietnam, Chile, Guatemala, British Guiana, Congo, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Lebanon, Greece, Venezuela and Argentina. There are other cases where countries have been attacked on the premise that they are not democratic but as they don’t “tow the line” but have resources like oil, are part of a critical “pipeline” to move oil or are rich in minerals. They are ripe for intervention. Today this is includes Libya and Afghanistan.

For my thought on Libya please see some of my earlier posts on the Subject.

Andy Warhol Hammer & Sickle

However this blog the timeline is from 1917 and deals with the Russian Revolution.

As I have written in a previous blog post I admire Bob Carr and I am in awe of his knowledge and when I read his articles I am reminded of my own lack of education. However in response to one of his most recent post “Back to Stalin” 17/07/11 I felt compelled to respond.

I know my view is not popular and it is with some discomfort that I write; but I am passionate about the subject and have always held a minority view. That said this is not an apology for Stalin but an expose of how it was that a person such as he was given the conditions to rise to power and the responsibility the West played in that process by militarily ( covertly and overtly) interfering in the affairs of a Sovereign state.

In my post I deal only with facts and the sources are many. I have worked solid on this for several days. Defensively I write again “I am no academic”

I hope you find it interesting and revealing.

The premise of the assertion that the November revolution in Russia is coup is wrong. It was the final step in a long path of events that were occurring throughout the period of the seizure of power by the Provisional Government in February of 1917 from the Tsar. Russia was without any democratic institution and had been an absolute Monarchy.

The circumstances of the Revolution are these.

The Tsar was overthrown by a popular uprising and a provisional government installed. There is much more detail that could be written around the cicumstances but today I wan to get to the heart of the matter ; the seizure of power by the Soviets.

Kerensky, the leader of the Provisional Government at the time, not only feared the Bolsheviks but also Russia’s Allies — Britain, France and United States — who were intent on keeping the bedraggled Russian Army in the 14/18 War. Also at risk was the prospect of Ukrainian wheat, Donet’s Coal and Caucasian oil falling into German hands.

Kerensky attempted to persuade the Russian Army on the verge of breaking up to continue the war. He ordered another catastrophic offensive. The response was that troops deserted in ever-increasing numbers. Everywhere behind the lines the deserting soldiers were forming themselves in to committees what we all now know as Soviets.

At the time the whole of Russia was one gigantic meeting place for Anarchists, pro-allied propagandists, Bolsheviks, Social revolutionaries Liberals and Mensheviks. It was in chaos.

Revolutionary Art

Lenin’s Party, the Bolsheviks, had been declared illegal by Kerensky and forced underground, but was growing in power with the support of the soldier and worker committees. The Cheka (initially the revolutions intelligence arm) wasn’t formed until December 1917 when it became apparent that there was a requirement to counter ration card and currency forgers and as a counter to the remnants of the Tsar’s secret Police The Okhrana.

Gapon

The Okhrana in 1905 was to the fore of the Bloody Sunday demonstration, when imperial guards killed hundreds of unarmed protesters who were marching during a demonstration organized by Father Gapon, who had collaborated with the Okhrana.

Bloody Sunday 1905

Some might argue this could be likened to some of the events that are occurring in the Middle East and North Africa today. Part of the debate today is whether as an example the rebels in Libya are indeed revolutionaries, Islamist Jihadists or simply stooges of the Imperial Oil/Gas interests with a bunch of mislead youths caught up in the “romance of it all”

Bloody Sunday 1905

Back to Russia: Against this chaotic background in 1917 the Menshevik government found itself incapable of feeding the people while grain was stored in the warehouses along the Volga River. The Kerensky government found itself incapable of organising delivery to Petrograd and Moscow.

At the centre of this was Roosevelt’s man in Russia working for the Red Cross, Raymond Robins, who though immediately reporting to a Colonel Thompson found after touring the countryside that the organisation of local government had completely broken down and that power had already been transferred to the local councils of peasant and worker deputies (The Soviets)

Raymond Robins “My Own Story”

Robins reported back to Thompson that the Kerensky Government was a “sort of paper and consent affair superimposed on top with bayonets in Petrograd and Moscow”.

However Kerensky believed in the continuation of the war, and to that end the allies believed he should be maintained in power. At the same time the head of the British intelligence service had returned to London to suggest a military dictatorship was the best answer for stability and keeping Russia in the war.

Raymond Robins

There were 2 men identified to lead this coup — Admiral Kolac and General Konilov, Commander in Chief of the Army. The British and French Governments decided on Konilov. This was actually opposed by the US representatives in Petrograd, Thompson and Robins.

An attempted putsch then took place which commenced with a proclamation by Konilov that the Provisional Government headed by Kerensky would be overthrown.

At that point thousands and thousand of leaflets were distributed entitled “Konilov the Russian Hero”. (Years later in his book The Great Catastrophe, Kerensky revealed that “these pamphlets were printed by the British Military Mission to Russia and brought to Petrograd by General Knox the British Military attaché .

Konilov

Konilov ordered his troops to march on Petrograd and it was this that was the real[attempted] military coup. Even before the Red Army was formed, General Kornilov promised, “the greater the terror, the greater our victories.”

Petrograd Troop Train

On its own initiative the Bolshevik controlled Petrograd Soviet then mobilised and immediately arrested all known supporters of Konilov including some 40 Generals and Kerensky’s Minister for War, Boris Savinkov who was implicated. The Konilov Putsch triggered the very thing it was designed to prevent: the revolution and seizure of power by the Communists.

Konilov and Savinkov

In his book Raymond Robbins wrote “The rise of the Soviets did the job without any force, this was the power that defeated Konilov”

The US Ambassador Frances of the time sent the following telegram to the U.S. State Department:

“KONILOVS FAILURE ATRIBUTIBLE TO BAD ADVISE, MISINFORMATION, IMPROPER METHODS, INOPPORTUNENESS, GOOD SOLDIER, PATRIOT, OTHERWISE INEXPERIENCED. GOVERNEMENT WAS BADLY FRIGHTEND AND MAY BENIFIFT FROM EXPERIENCE.”

This is a clear indictment that the Government of the United States was directly interfering in the internal affairs of a Sovereign State.

November 3, a secret conference of allied military officers was convened to discuss plans to stop the Communists take over.

The head of the French delegation General Niesel denounced the Provisional Government as being weak while the British condemned the US for not getting behind Konilov. General Knox, representing the British, was to push again the idea of a military coup and dictatorship. When challenged by Robbins, Knox’s response was at the suggestion that he may get a dictatorship (Lenin and Trotsky) of an entirely different character was recorded as saying in response to a question of whether to deal with Lenin and Trotsky “We will stand them up and shoot them”

Sailors could be like Libya Rebels?

By November 7, the revolution happened almost imperceptibly — rank and file people, soldiers, sailors with them proceeded to take over the key buildings across Petrograd.

By December 2 Ambassador Francis sent his report to the State Department about the emergence of a Cossack General Kaledin who had an army of 200,000. He recommended of a loan of $2mil to support the Kaledin cause…and so the final seeds were sown for the commencement of the Civil War. With that any hope that the Soviet Republic would be able to be an open and fully democratic state and have a respectable (to the West ) “social democratic face” was lost.

Frances was to meet Kaledin’s agents in Petrograd. At the same time the British intelligence service dispatched an agent Sidney Riley (a Russian born) to make contact with other forces opposed to the regime. Though still at war with Germany the New York Times described the Bolsheviks as “our most malignant enemies”

It was against this background of western subterfuge that the Russian counter-intelligence services were created. The Cheka was formed at a time a bitter Civil War had broken out.

It seems in 2011 the lessons have still not been learned about intervening in sovereign nations internal affairs; the exception being the young Spanish republic though democratically elected in 1936 was subjected to the Franco Military Coup and to a Civil War of 3 years. All while the Western Powers the guardians of democracy stood idly by while the Germans and Italians gave full personnel and material support to the Fascists

Lenin in debate

The Cheka was at the outset intended that formally to hand over “counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs” to the revolutionary tribunals. With the ebb and flow of the front lines the excesses not so unlike those of the Military Courts Martial of either the Allied or Central Powers in the 14-18 War summary elimination of deserters saboteurs and black marketers was common place.

In recent times we have seen such summary actions occur with our NATO Allies such as Greek Junta in the 60s or US South American Allies like Argentina and Chile. Always we the West has either stood idly by or been actively engaged in the violent overthrow of democratically elected governments where they have had a socialist character. Chile is a classic example with the overthrow of Salvador Allende who was the democratically elected president.

We have had the Military tribunals set for Guantanamo and the forcible and illegal rendition of prisoners. The hypocrisy one hears exhorted about the Russian revolution and it’s ideals would be laughable if it wasn’t for the fact our western democracies are as guilty by proxy in rise of the Cheka and NKVD ( the KGB came later) and the excesses attributed to those organisations in defence of the Russian revolution. Those excesses are directly the result of western interference and attacks on the young Russian Republic. It was inextricably tied to the rise of Stalin.

By August 1918, in support of the White Russians as opposed the Red [Army], British troops landed in Archangel and Murmansk, seized the Baku oil fields in the Caucuses. British French and 30,000 Japanese landed in Vladivostok and were later joined by US troops from the Philippines. 50,000 Czech troops who had deserted from the Austro-Hungarian Empire were mobilised against the Russians. Other countries involved were China, Greece, Romania and Turkey

Civil War Front lines

There were even 1500 Italians. In the Ukraine, the German troops continued to advance. Later after the 1918 war, the Germans were to be re mobilised to attack the Russians again alongside the Poles. To the North were the Fins who having recently overthrown their revolutionary government attacked Russia under the leadership of General Mannerheim supplied by the British and the Germans. Manerheim was later to be engaged in the Winter War prior to the outbreak of and during WW11 and was again supported by the British and Germans.

Interesting bedfellows we [ British] have had.

By 28 August 1918, a coup was organised by the British Sidney Riley in Moscow, the Government having been relocated there in 1918. There were to follow days of turmoil in the course of which Lenin was shot, from which he never fully recovered dying in 1924.

A proclamation was issued by a White Russian General Rozanoff”:

“that in any village that meets our men with arms will be burned down with all full grown men shot all homes burnt ….” The assault on “human rights supported by the west clearly starts with the ‘White’ Russians.

In 1919 at the Paris Peace conference, a plan was put forward the by German General Hoffman who was on the General Staff. It was known as the “Hoffman a plan” ….. to march on Moscow. Hoffman later reviled the West in his memoirs The War of Lost Opportunities for not having followed his plan.

General Hoffman

In 1923 the British Ambassador to Berlin following a visit to Hoffman concurred, writing “nothing can go right in the world until all the civilised powers unite and the Soviet Government is hung”.

Later versions of the Hoffman plan were to emerge with the support of French Generals Foch, Petain, Finn Mannerheim, Admiral Horthy and Director of British Navel Intelligence Sir Barry Domville.

Oil was to play its part in this One of the most important personalities to be drawn into this anti Soviet campaign was Sir Henri Wilhelm August Deterding…head of Royal Dutch Shell. Ther is a little more about the is English Peer further on in the blog

In 1924 Like the News of the World phone hacking today, back then the British Press was excelling itself with the so called Zinoviev letter. The letter was purportedly an instruction from Zinoviev, the international Communist Leader of the Comintern, to Pro Soviet Labour Party members how they might “assist in the revolutionising of the international and British proletariat just before in the upcoming election. It was published in the Daily Mail. Opportunistically Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald tried to use the used the letter to his own ends by distancing himself from it though he had knowledge that it was a forgery.

What we saw in the 1920s we see with the News of The World 2011 We see it on Fox News everyday. We saw it in Vietnam out right lies and distortions and the Murdoch Press demonstrates today that facts and truth can be replaced by ideology. It is okay to tell lies either to protect the unfairness of society and make more money or you can tell the truth and not make more money. It’s a free choice the Daily Mail made and the same choice Murdoch makes to distort the News.

The Zinoviev letter was later found not only to be a forgery according to Scotland Yard but emanated from Germany and was sent to the paper by a George Bell who it turned out was on the payroll of Royal Dutch Shell who still had their eye on Russian oil. Incidentally Bob (Carr) for Donald Hayfield to liken Zinoviev looks as being rChico Marx is somewhat disingenuous and some might even think anti-Semitic since both were Jewish. It is remarkably stupid for an emeritus professor to write. In any event its unlikely that the Russians would of had a clue who Chico Marx was at the time given that he was in the US and there was after all no TV. I haven’t read the book “Stalin and his Hangmen” (not Henchmen as you wrote) but I am not surprised about his view given his family were Georgian (like Stalin) emigres to London having been on the losing side in the Civil War.

In the Cicli War; against this background of western intervention, the Cheka was formed and the seeds laid for the excesses and distortions of the Soviet Republic that were to emerge under Stalin. The Civil War was to continue for another 4 years until 1922 with the Reds taking back the Port of Vladivostok in Russia Far East. Fighting continued for well over another year so in effect the Civil War didn’t end until 1923. This victory was hardly won by a bunch of Clowns

Churchill

The Great Conspiracy Against Russia

Famine was rife across Russia while the interventionists continued to attempt to overthrow the regime. By 1922, British Secretary of War Churchill dispatched Sidney Reilly again, this time to Europe as well as to Russia, to sow furthers seeds of counter-revolution and outright acts of terrorism.

The Western intervention and the Civil had a devastating effect on the country’s economy. It is estimated that the total output of mines and factories in 1922 had fallen to 20% of the pre 14-18 World War level, some area had a more drastic decline; cotton production fell to 5%, and iron to 2% of pre-war levels. At the end of the Civil War Industrial output in 1922 was 13% of that in 1914

In just over 20 years the Soviets were to rip the guts out of the Nazi War machine at the cost of over 20 mil dead.

Who knows what the Soviet Union may have looked like had it not been for the Intervention of the Americans, British, French, Germans who are remarkably the same countries intervening in Libya to day…..just saying. What we do know is that this revolution inspired and continues to inspire people all over the planet all be it having learned from the errors of the young Soviet Republic. The video link here and below is a snapshot.

Oil, Shell the Nazis and a British Peer

Which brings me back to Shell: In the course of my research on Sir Henri Wilhelm August DeterdingI discovered this Picture.

Nazi Funeral of Sir Henri Deterding

This funeral held 10 February 1939 with some trappings of a state funeral, was held at a private estate in Dobbin, Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse (photograph above), with senior Nazis officials in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring. Oviously the [Young] Soviet republic the great experiment was under threat from all sides from 1917- 1941

Graveside Nazi Salutes

As Lloyd George stated at the conclusion to the First World War “The [Russian] peasant accepted Bolshevism for the same reason the French peasant accepted the French Revolution”. He wanted land and hope

In Gore Vidal’s most recent book “Point to Point” he makes a telling reference that while there appeared to be a plentiful bounty for all there is likelihood due to the return of the objective conditions that were the cause of the French and Russian revolutions means that such upheavals are most likely to occur again.

With the economic conditions now emerging from the late 90s with the widening gap between rich and poor, the foreign military adventures the indebtedness of the US the World Financial Crisis conditions of “revolution” are again surfacing. With that comes the risk of an erosion of our hard-won democratic rights.

As I wrote once in my Blog about Spain beware “for whom the bell tolls ….it tolls for you and me”

This war of intervention began in a veil of secrecy and dishonesty and ended in shameful disaster. There are some lessons from 1918 it seems we are yet to learn in 2011.In 1918 it was the British Intelligence Service today it is the CIA.

Never to have a post without some music video

Red Army Choir there are so many clips to choose but I settled on this…for now 🙂

Its a marching song from the perspective of someone standing at the road-side

Please view them as you wish and not too seriously a bit of tongue in cheek if you please.

I’ll Leave you with this Hell March red Alert 3

Red Alert

As with all my blogs I will come back with some refinements over the next few days.

I will have follow ups to Libya Syria Music of course but my slowness in blogging recently is caused by diversions to more pressing matters work being one:-)

I hope to get back on track soon

Regards Davie

3 Comments

Posted in Books and Reading, In search of stupidity, Libya, NATO, Oil, Philosophy, Politics, Social comment, Spainish Civil War | Tags: Bradley Manning, Egypt protests 2011, Libya, NATO, North Africa, Oil, Red Alert, Revolution, Russian Civil War, Socialists, Spanish Civil War, War Crimes

Posted by: daviemacdonald | June 15, 2011

A small place is as big as the world.a story about my childhood.so

A small place is as big as the world.

Today I decided to write some more about my background….indulgent? I guess it is.

There are several reasons for doing this; none I hope is from some form of Narcissism. I wrote in the early part of this blog I wasn’t previously convinced that many if not most blogs were actually written by people simply wanting to air their stuff in the belief that their day-to-day trivia would really interest others. I believed many bloggers are simply sufferers of NPD

My view changed when I explored blogs further and found myself reading more associated with social commentary world events and simply providing information. I decided and wrote that I had probably been previously too judgmental about blogs in general. This was because there are so very many great blogs out there that I find I am in absolute awe of their content, their look and feel the writing ability and the knowledge of the writer. I constantly feel humbled and as an excuse for my efforts have to tell “I am no academic”

Bob Carr’s blog Thoughtlines is one that really impresses me and I am embarrassed to even consider being in the same space. It is the one of note that comes to mind as I write now.

Many of the political blogs make me feel quite lacking especially as in mine I will revert to my personal legal challenges soon to be launched battles in the Family and District Court. Oh that I possessed the strength to confine my writing to just political thought, with the odd post about sport culture or foody things.

But I am not just up to it! I just do not have that strength of character. I wish I did. It is simply that the salvos of my personal affairs were first published by another in their blog and the content of those postings were so untrue I needed to have my say

Am I also a self-important Moron: Perhaps

I have seen and read several blogs over the past months that are shamelessly plagiarist. One I’ve read focuses on film and book reviews so obviously taken and cobbled together from several other written sources. We are not talking research we are talking about copying You can fool some people sometime but you can’t fool all the people all the time .

There are food blogs that are simply glorified recipe books where the recipes are taken straight from cook books. Unless you are a chef or really creative in the area why bother except to boast.

However on review again of many blogs I do find justification in my original thought that the vast majority have no theme and are pure unadulterated self-indulgent gossip and glorified twitters They have nothing of value to add to the planet other than they are written as communication to keep in touch with friends who are equally lacking in any real content for their lives.

How arrogant am I….. but really who the hell cares if you write anonymously if you painted a brown chair black or you just want to publicise accusations of your Boss improperly flirting with you. I think the worst I have read is when people blog just how much their children annoy them and still there are people who read such stuff ans still consider them to have some intellect and to be worth knowing.

In one blog I read how a mother had forcibly washed their child’s mouth out with soap and water. I still rack my conscience about whether I should report this abuse. I still might or better ask some friend who live but a stone throw away go make a visit to express their disgust

In my blogging I often find myself giving me a big kick but the need is there to write and share the injustice and post a warning over the way I was treated in a very recent relationship. I am not sure there is a single reason why I feel like this but having spent over 5 and a half years with a deceptive and especially cunning and manipulative partner who I now intellectually understand was just after every last cent they could extract from me to the point of even hacking into my Qantas frequent flier account changing the email notification and nicking all my points enough to fly to the local Supermarket and back.

So why write about it here? Isn’t that being equally self-absorbed? Probably! The big issue for me was they went public and involved a multitude of people including my community friends in their nonsense. They have continued to do so and gossip what they believe are private conversations. I feel compelled to write again.

This space is my way of countering again the rubbish that had been written about me and the discussions (gossip) that is still taking place. My chronicle here eases hurt it is cathartic and Fuck; it feels right to do so. The Courts too will have their place in the matrix of justice but for now as that process trundles slowly on so I sit down and write.

I also wanted to write today (and these were the original 2 main reasons) because I went to a Care Lever Australia Network (CLAN) gathering on Saturday in Bankstown. It was for the opening of the organisation Head Office.

I was less than impressed with the mutual Political back slapping that dominated the proceedings and it added in my opinion little for the dignity of the forgotten Australians. Sadly it seemed totally focused on the children from care in Australia at the exclusion of those who were forcibly migrated here from the UK. Thankfully I am neither but I now know from my time in the National children’s home came very close to being one.

A discussion with Ken Loach “Oranges and Sunshine”

However there are many of us already separated from our folks who regularly saw our elder defacto brothers and sisters being suddenly be part of the disappeared. We lost these defacto siblings forever. Something I would like to do is to get the Australian and British Governments to take the apology to the third stage . An apology for all those left behind now also forgotten in the UK. They need their apology also.

Child migration -60s

At the CLAN event we had several members of Parliament invited there as speakers and one who couldn’t attend did so by video link.

I think it was fine to have the building opened by a Political dignitary but for the proceeding to then be totally dominated by Politicians was plain wrong. We were subjected for the next hour and a half to politicians promoting themselves. I have been around politicians long enough to see through most of the bullshit. I found it was patronising in the extreme and I don’t think it afforded real dignity to the attendees

My expectation had been that the building would be opened by a dignitary and then there would be a general milling about. This did happen later but the moment when this was appropriate to do was missed due to the Political grandstanding mainly by the Conservative Politicians

“Oh what a good chap am Oh how I know what is must have been like and what poor fellows you are” seemed to be the underlying theme.

Well I think I saw through that and it’s wasn’t good. Even when I arrived I saw 2 seats in the front row which I went to plonk myself on…Well just one but I had taken my original Teddy bear for the day 🙂

My Bear and Me

Nah I wasn’t an important dignitary so not for me so sorry up the back row… The dignitaries should have been comfortable sitting amongst us but now even now after the “apology to the forgotten ones” superior status was given its head. We are just the sorry ones.

One of the very worst “faux pas” by a politician ever then occurred. It was one of the most embarrassing I have ever seen given the sensitivity of the audience and occasion…it went like this

This Politician a liberal (Conservative) claimed in his speech to have read a book written by an ex Care Lever. I should add he did say he did time in a home. While on the platform he said looking directly at the author “Now so and so is a great successes story. I found his book fascinating and what is great is that so and so went on to becomes what was it? A sociologist or psychiatrist”

“Neither came back the reply. I’m a Dr of Chemistry”

Now how could you get something as simple as that so wrong? Only if you are a Liberal (conservative) politician I guess. IDIOT

How embarrassing

Later as we were walking to a barbecue area and me clutching my Teddy Bear from the National Children’s home (that has been with me since 1951) this same politician was behind me.

He asked what’s that referring to the bear ?

pIC

I turned my head and said “My bear” “Yep he goes with me everywhere across the world

(which is NOT STRICTLY TRUE but as the day was special and he takes pride of place in my house so I decided to be brave and take him along with me and fib a bit).

Not knowing from what side of politics this Politician was from I chose to say “see the red scarf that cos he is a Communist Pioneer”.

Had to get a response one way…Yes NO?…No

He looked extremely perplexed…

So I repeated it ….Umm I thought either way by his reaction he thinks I’m really am odd at best or something else…a bikie perhaps

So me claiming not to be odd and in need of mental support; I had a bubble thought “not a very friendly chap”. After all the bear was a perfect way to engage anyone either side of the political divide but not this Politician.

Only when I got home did I discover he was a conservative…so I guess he can’t help it. From his speech I got the impression he perhaps was only there for his own agenda His by the way he promised to wrap up a good half-dozen times

I will be watching his political performance from now with great interest. I have invited him to be a Facebook friend so I may have to eat my words here if I am wrong…..Not wrong

Another Politician I should mention is Malcolm Turnbull. Now poor Malcolm got all flushed when I simply wanted as I told him “as a member of the extreme real left of the ALP thank him for his kind words and efforts for the “forgotten ones”. He was completely gob smacked and another who looked at me very oddly. He couldn’t get away quick enough.

Oh happy day 🙂

There was another Politician I got to speak to however who was a delight. This was Claire Moore. What can I say lovely engaging down to earth and was just great to chat with. I didn’t know then she is a Labor Senator. It’s the difference between the genuine and the opportunist?

So now to the other reason for today’s blog. It is simply that in light of Saturday I wanted to share the following which I first penned in October 2006 with *items in brackets have been added since then.

It is called A small place is as big as the world. just a story about my early childhood…

it goes like this.

****My fondest childhood memory I have is of a big kitchen in the children’s home at Harpenden.

To recap what I have written here before on this blog when I was born my Mother had tuberculosis so…….we were separated.

I always recall how my Mother would tell me years later how it was when she was only able to see me through a glass screen …hung by a nurse upside down by the legs. It was the closest she was able to get to me due to her recurring illness. How hard that must have been for her.

That kitchen was huge ……………but then I was just a little boy and so was the home…..huge……….The largest in the UK I understand… Today a kitchen dinner table is still a most comfortable place I find myself to be. A perfect substitute is a large dinner table that is usually found in most large homes like 22a ???????? (my parents home in Hastings). Unfortunately for my Mother she had to stay in hospital so she had to suffer an immediate separation from me. We never did that bonding thing.

Licking the cake mix bowl was my biggest treat. The finite details are not so important now but I know that when I first see a big country house and large dining room tables I am always transported back in a moment.

I have vague recollections of Olaf (my father) visiting me and I do recall the red speed boat made that is seen in a picture of me on the homes balcony.

Me & the Boat at Harpenden children’s Home

Douglas (my half-brother) kindly found the picture for me. I remember the day I left the home clearly as night follows day. My house Mother and I said our final goodbyes. I still remember vividly that moment peering through the back window of what I believe to be the Austin 8 though I expect it was the Austin 7 below.

austin-7

I have one picture of her Sister Riva, not a direct shot as it is essentially of me. (Since the original writing of this I have found another)

David & Sister Eva

It is however my second most favorite possession. What is my first? Well maybe you will let me show you one day. It is a picture……….well 2 actually. Though over the years I have secured 3 family mementos 2 of which. I brought back to give [my] Mother.

So there I was leaving my home that day for my new one……………and in reality my truth is that I still haven’t arrived yet after 4 decades of wanting though 71 (my London house) came close to it. But sadly it is gone which is why I found it [hard] to return to the area. (Though I have done since via Google maps)

My journey is still the road and sometimes I feel lost at times (as I did last August 2010)

I have some great memories like when Doug my brother would take me to the pictures or Frances my sister would bath me.

My den my bedroom was “my” place. It was tiny. My cupboards such as they were; [were] fashioned from orange boxes. Probably 4 of them that stood and measured probably just 4 feet x maybe one and a half or so.

My bear, we all had one didn’t we? He yes a he, was a hand-me-down still clothed in my NCH children’s home uniform which he still fashions today. No fur (our dear sister had shaved and cut it). He is worn bare with the straw stuffing poking through in parts like his snout. Back then I recall he had no nose, one eye hanging by a thread, only one leg, only one hand hanging loosely and held on by a hinge of sacking cloth. No ears too. Today I was able take some great shots and when I return (to the UK) he will go back with me.

The Bear

Remarkably with all those missing parts like any sea-faring adventurers with wooden stumps for legs or hooks for arms he was to travel far and wide. He was the captain of my ship, which was my bed as we travelled the stormy sea. My bed was often the life boat to rescue other seafarers less fortunate than us. The actors some were animals “all stuffed”

A hedgehog

Another smaller blackish brown bear…I also think was a “Steif”

A seal, ( the one I had the fight over # see Schoolyard Bully)

A golly and a knitted cowboy (made by my Mother)

A rabbit with blue trousers…must have been Peter

and me of course went around the world and we all traveled through time.

My little place my room my den was where we would fight the Indian repelling them from my little bedroom now a fort My bedroom was actually what used to be called a box room We would do battle with the invading Norman with the occasional foray as one of Cromwell’s men to fight the Royalists in the Civil war. We landed at Normandy too.

What we achieved was really heroic….ah just a little boy’s dreams

With Cars traced from books and stuck on to card I would race at the Monaco Grand Prix. The track was a cracked linoleum floor and was witness to some of the most remarkable moments in (motor racing history. There were Ferraris Alfas and the British too with their Lotus (me) and the striped Coopers or the BRM …ALL both resplendent in the British Racing Green and the Lotus with its yellow wheels which I loved.

I even built ships from a sack of old blocks of building wood to do battle at Trafalgar. Yes we beat the French and later time traveled to the Pacific to beat the Japanese. We even mined for coal under the bed.

My bed might be a wagon racing across the plains to open the Wild West. I was also the sheriff of Tombstone arresting the outlaw.

My bedroom floor was a tiny place that was as big as the stadium at Wembley. The crowds watched as mini pictures of hand drawn soccer players flicked a ball made from a roll of paper precisely one inch square made into a ball. The shots were into goals made from a single shoe (whose sole always leaked in rain) at each end of a threadbare Persian mat.

“The Scots to beat the English?” We always did after all we are a warrior race and the best in our Royal Blue.

Englands loss to Scotland 2-3 Wembley 1967

My little Paraffin stove kept me warm; enough to melt the ice on inner side of the window and cause Jack Frost to slip away.

Typical paraffin Heater late 50s 60s

It was my place and to venture out even to the toilet was a journey I often couldn’t make. The other side, that dark side of the door was often a terrifying foray to the other side * [of the bedroom door] Often all of the world it seemed was so unkind. “They say” “suffer the little children not” but we always do and we do and we did and no one knew.

I was approved in my place my den, no arguments there. My animals all stuffed came to life to offer their friendship and join my gang. They approved of my world and that was all that mattered. And then there was my dog “bruin”

Bruin

But at eight he was gone and yet he remains in my memory as vivid as ever. He had cancer I was told but we made our pact. I promised that he wouldn’t go (in that I failed) but in the other I kept my word that there would be no Shaggy dog to replace him ever. How could there be?

I have kept my promise…….and sometimes even as I read this now I am embarrassed just how I still feel. Its the child within

So all of that is why I have never had any grandiose plans for wealth.

This is why I am comfortable in my little place I now live because to venture into one [very] large takes me to a place from which I was removed and I loved and a cannot easily face a return to….. however brief.

I am always in awe of large places and wealth. Because the leaving takes too long, the memories hard to erase and the journey; my journey to another home still continues today.

Sometimes I have ventured back to ask “why”.

I am happy now I know and *I approve of that. I have done well I think. I brought my son up as his primary care giver until he was 9….and there is more to tell….but I will stop there….for now.

So now you know why “a big place is a small place and a small place is as big as the world we imagine”.

Perhaps this poem by Pablo Naruda the poet murdered by Pinochet sums up my life from its high point in 2007 until its lowest in 2010

Pablo Naruda Poet

And that is why I have to go back
to so many places in the future,
there to find myself
and constantly examine myself
with no witness but the moon
and then whistle with joy,
ambling over rocks and clods of earth
with no task but to live,
with no family but the road

For 13 days in August 2010 this poem became a reality as I was again free.

The story was written just as a narrative Just some innocent ramblings I decided to share it some 18 months into my relationship with my ex I did it when I felt confident decided finally it was time to share it with my best friend and partner. There was nothing in it other than it was about me and I wanted to share it with a special person. I drafted it a few months after the death of my Mother.

*When I arrived home approval for anything was not something that was readily given for a job well done around the house. I think that is something to do with the era of the 60s. I think we as parents hopefully have learned from this. I think we are much more inclined to express our love and rewards much more than parents did in the 50s and 60s

But in any event now I was A MAN so some Bo Didley

Unfortunately I was to be reminded of this in Canberra throughout my stay of over 3 and a half years there. There was little recognition (yet) for all the money and work I did to maintain and improve the home and property of my friend.

12 July: It is now a matter that will eventually go before the Courts and painfully so as it requires a toughness that I don’t admire in anyone let alone me.

After drafting “A Little Place” in March 06 I completed it to share secretly with someone special and without doubt they were special. To be frank I guess there was an element in me that was wanting some recognition and validation of “how well” I may have turned out; tough (I kid myself a lot:-) kind and gentle ” Yes I think that was it ……..but certainly not sympathy seeking …I’m too much a lad and a bit “flash” for that and it was written after 21 years of a very single and happy life. I was established and 18 months into a terrific 101 relationship.

The rest of “my story” you may have already picked up around this blog was rarely ever touched on. I was very happy and it was a very forgotten part of my life.

For good and bad I decided to write about me very personally again in this blog today yet again in response to continuing back yard gossip, blogging and tweeting about me. An example of which I did post here as an illustration. I removed it because my anger about it has subsided and but leaves me now with the question of them

“Why did you need to do any of it “?

Writing this day was Cathartic.

Whatever …… it is just my story some more ” A Story about a boy”

I think you get the picture

And while we have the Pretty Things here is their biggest hit from the 1960s enjoy

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Posted in Blogging, Family & Property Law, Motor Vehicles, Music, Pets, Poetry, Politics, Social comment, Sport, Toys, Uncategorized | Tags: Children in Care, defacto, Family Law, property rights

Posted by: daviemacdonald | June 5, 2011

Scales Of Justice but full service will be resumed shortly

Dear every one due to a range of hugely time-consuming issues I have not had time to blog recently. I want you all to know that it isn’t me being slack just the weight of other issue has swamped me. I feel I have let some people down and my commitment to the Libyan people has taken a back seat to my own issues.

In order of priority my challenges have been:-

Preparing a submission the Law Society laying out a complaint about my first Lawyer in my Family Law dispute. The submission was by its nature complex and had to be detailed and required research into the regulations governing conduct of Legal Practitioners. As it is current it would not be appropriate to reveal much today.

Preparing a submission to the Australian Capital Territory District Court re the above which is a priority to prepare and file for next week. With that all out-of-the-way we are then free to go after thevery ex either in the Family Court or the District Court…there are advantages in either. We might even file in both…more later

The collation of material referred to my Affidavit to be filed in the matter of my “Family Court and Property matter.

The almost final drafts of my Affidavit re above which is incidentally is over 70 pages long.

Searching for and ordering the transcript of a Traffic Matter held in the ACT Magistrates Court that reveals and proves the status of my relationship with Ms Green. As I once wrote [I think] before the longer that (m)uck us around we simply have more time to make my case and claim stronger and bigger by the day.

The preparation of a report to Police in respect of the Identity [change] theft and stealing of my frequent flier points by my ex [Qantas Fraud Investigation Incident #0*^%@*/11 ]. This again is related to the above and part of the mechanism used involved changing my registered contact email with Qantas to their IBM email address…so I wouldn’t know the theft had been done. Ms x made the error in the process of the change back later to my address to a “dot com” when in fact it should have been a “dot net au”! Now how silly? Without that error the theft would never have come to light.

The collation of evidence in a defamation action to be brought in relation to the family matter that was blogged about me. This will be pursued when all of the above have been dealt with. There are up to 9 individuals concerned in the defamation but I have my sights set primarily 4 individuals in Australia who statements were particularly harmful and damaging.

Now if that wasn’t enough to be getting on with I had to organise the finding and retrieval of a motor vehicle belonging to my boy [son] that had been taken without our consent in December 2010. It had been left with an electrician at Brisbane Auto Electric who then took the care when he went bust in December and proceeded to we now find wreck it. The finding and retrieval of the car was a somewhat drawn out process and we were successful with the help of our friends in the Queensland Police. The vehicle was found last Tuesday and I had to arrange from Sydney a Tow Truck to go seize it. Yes you got it I had to prepare a report of over 6 pages to Police as to the circumstances and also to prepare a claim to the insurance company.

Bodgy Tyre Wall Repair

Someone ripped of the side skirt

There is some damage to the car and parts missing which I am in the process of sourcing. Being an old American Coupe this is just another time-consuming challenge and the search is world-wide. Next week hopefully there will be some positive news.

What this is also a lesson in is that if you F*$k with me I will eventually reimburse you with interest

Now wait there is more:-)

On coming out of home Friday morning one of my other cars had been bashed into …so it was off the panel beaters to organise repairs next week. Monday 6 June update all the parts we need including rear tail-lights, body skirts,and other bits and pieces have been found.

My health is not quite so good and after suffering a severe spinal injury in January 09 when I prolapsed 3 disks internally to the spinal colum I further severely damaged my back with all the heavy lifting when I was forced to move last year. The result from that is today I am back under care with a team leader who is co-coordinating my treatment with 2 other specialists. The prognosis is good and I am determined I will get my leg moving properly again though I am now registered [temporarily] as disabled.

Key thing is pain management which is working well.

I did have to travel way out to Westmead Hospital to get an MRI but in the course of trying to locate the imaging Center in the dark I found my self ( unknowingly) driving along a Bus only Transit Lane…and not even going in the direction I needed to find the imaging center…So realising this I spun the car around the drive back. Bummer its a $258 fine in each direction with the loss 2 demerit points. So Friday was devoted to writing my mitigation plea; this will be sent tomorrow.

Well I guess that would be enough for anyone …but no there is even more

On Tuesday the week previously I had to attend the fracture clinic for my arm…now as I am now registered as disabled I parked in what I thought was a disabled parking zone at the Royal North Shore Hospital. Wrong! It turns out that I parked in one of many spaces adjacent that was reserved for medical staff!

Ooops…… though my disability registration license was clearly visible the Parking Rangers decided to stick me with a $87 ticket…..Which means more letter writing tomorrow.

Well apart from all that life is all good…or is it? When I was up in Queensland 3 weeks ago I boke a bridge in the front of my mouth which meant last Friday week ago I spent from 3.30 to 8.00 in the Dentist chair!!

Well at least it didn’t hurt………that much.

Talking about Queensland I stayed on the Gold coast as a guest of my sons Mum and her new (by way of duration) new husband, Diane and Renze. It felt great totally natural and made me very happy to know I have 2 great friends. He is a lovely bloke. I was also able to catch up with my ex in-laws who are always most accommodating and supportive to me. They are really defacto parents now of over 25 years. Well that’s how I see it I hope they do too:-).

So if you would think that would be it. You would be wronnnnnng 🙂 I have got the Financial Ombudsman dealing with a complaint I filed originally pre-Christmas against GE Capital for some shoddy and dodgy paper work relating to the finance of my BMW. Well I had to re submit 6 weeks ago so that’s another legal matter on the go…phew

To top it all off I have been making sometime a twice weekly (like last week) visit to the vet with Emma my Lilac Burmese (see an earlier fun post ‘alien cats’).

She has been very poorly and at one point I faced the real possibility of perhaps needing to put her to sleep. But since Thursday she has seemed to re gather her good old nagging self. So fingers crossed the future is looking much brighter ….but she will need bi or tri weekly visits to the vet for anti inflammatory anti biotic and pain killing injections.

emma

Emma watching Scotland

This morning I went to the French’s Forest Farmers Organic Market and then onto to a pro Price on Carbon Rally held at Prince Alfred Park. It was a great day and the weather simply beautiful.

Don’t misunderstand any of the above because though I have all those challenges life is especially great now I am away from Canberra though I do miss many of my friends there.

I am only regretful I haven’t had the time to post all the REAL news around Libya. I have got somewhere with several articles but with the speed of the events and all my stuff I just haven’t been able to post anything All I can say is keep on not believing what the main stream media Obama and Cameron keep pumping out. After all if they were truly winning they would not have to resort to using ground attack helicopters and extending NATO operation for another 3 months.

Okay thank you to all of you who have kept the faith in returning to my blog. I do hope I have something next time that is much less self oriented. ~~There are no illustrations but there maybe a few tomorrow.~~ Hope you all have a great evening in Aussie or day in Europe.

Cheers Davie. Life is Good 🙂

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Posted in Blogging, Family & Property Law, In search of stupidity, Libya, NATO, No Fly Zone, No Fly Zone, Pets, Uncategorized | Tags: cats, Family Law, Libya, Libya Feb17 Gadaffi, North Africa, Oil, property rights

Posted by: daviemacdonald | May 15, 2011

Nothing Changes So just “Paint it Black”

The Nazis killed MILLIONS. They got a trial. The World got Justice

When I heard the news a week ago Sunday that Bin Laden was dead, I immediately felt something was wrong …something didn’t seem quite right….and the reports started changing. I immediately shared my thoughts with those around me and surprisingly being someone experienced in standing alone with my views most everybody I spoke to was also sceptical. As a result though I had other pressing matters I felt compelled to post a blog last week. Though my audience is small if one applies the maxim of networking based on my current weekly readership my thoughts could possibly each out to over 1000 people.

The events of North Africa have certainly driven a hole in my intended plans for this blog. But the issues are to important to let go by without comment.

Here is a follow up to my last weeks post

If indeed Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan 2 weeks ago (and not before as some believe) it has taken the US 9 years to achieve to achieve this feat.

In the search for BinLaden it is not hard to find stupidity in the US policy. It drives two reckless wars, lets OBL escape from Tora Bora, keeps looking for him in caves and as it turns out invades the wrong country. The first war in Iraq has cost to date $2.0 trillion cost the lives of almost 6,000 Allied troops and 100s 000s civilian of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Doubts about when Bin Laden was actually killed must be brought into question as a result of the CIA Bin Laden bureau being closed by the Bush Administration in 2005.

Some questions have also arisen (see my last post) with the speed of the celebrations in the wake of the announcement of the Death of Bin Laden. The TV coverage displayed a worrying jingoistic response. Not the response to the end of a War involving the whole of mankind such as the 2^nd World War on VE Day but something more sinister. Some suggest even pre planned with flags an all. I will leave that for the conspiracy theorists

On the day it was announced that Hitler was dead, there was no rejoicing in the streets, even on the News Reels of the Soviet Union from the time you willsee on the faces of the Red Army troops just a reflection on all the comrades lost in the battle for Berlin.

The real celebration came on the meeting of the Allies on the Oder river and later at the announcement that the war in Europe was over. THAT’S what the people were relieved to hear not just the demise of Hitler but the end to all the killing but its another thing celebrating Bin Laden’s death at the site where the remains of his victims are still occasionally found at Ground Zero. I doubt anyone would all go each year to Auschwitz to crack open bottles of champagne. There is something sick about this and what some in the the US are reducing themselves to.

What was seen in the US was celebration not unlike that after a World series win or fans after the FA Cup Final OR Rugby Final. Nothing better than a party going on, complete with the shaking and spraying of champagne bottles over the crowd. The largest partying done at Ground Zero scene of the twin towers take down.I can completely understand people wanting to celebrate as on VE day but something didn’t feel right. It’s one thing to be happy that a criminal has been captured and dealt with.

When the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, people didn’t pour into the streets to celebrate did they?. I imagine mother’s brothers sisters Fathers were happy and hopeful that their loved ones would be home soon as the event of dropping the bomb might bring war to a close. Though on this last point I should point out that the Soviets had entered the land war against the Japanese who were then already suing for peace with the Russians. It has long been argued therefore that there was something more sinister in the reason to drop the Atomic Bombs but that is a narrative for another day.

Back to the dropping of the Atomic bombs the deaths of the Nazi War Criminals in context of bin Laden there was not a public display of Champagne Celebration for a hundred thousand Japs have been fried!”

From VJ Day with Frank McAkary dancing down George Street Sydney, VE Day in Trafalgar square , the sailor kissing the girl in Times Square on August 14th, 1945, were all celebrations of relief and of a world thought to be finally at peace. That’s when America went crazy with joy – not over killings, but over an announcement of peace.

We are humane, we are educated, we are reasoned and measured are we not . Are you a hysterical a mad revenge seeker. You will say yes to the former and no [ most cases] to the latter. There was no blood lust euphoria on the day Timothy McVeigh was executed. The world was respectfully silent. The families of the Oklahoma City dead were silent and no doubt relieved. What is the difference between Hitlers Nazi War criminals, PolPot, McVeigh and Bin Laden, other than the number they slaughtered? I wonder. I think we know the answer. Nothing

Though bin Laden is dead, we are told that our freedoms that have been eroded over the past decade are not to be lessened but in fact are to be increased as the War goes on Terror” must continue!

So with our victory do we have our VE and VJ day crowd to celebrate peace in Trafalgar Square London mass in Hyde Park Sydney or dance down George Street to celebrate our re-found easy transition onto our air flights? No! Will we be bringing the troops home anytime soon? No On the first point about air flights if you go first class the security checks are quicker and less invasive. Mad if you consider all the 9/11 hijackers traveled 1st Class

Will Afghanistan be stabilised? Will Iraq be rebuilt into the 21^st Century or left to continue to rot. Unlike Europe and Japan at the end of the War when the US was able to invest today the US is flat broke so can’t help with the repairing the destruction she ( in respect to all mothers perhaps I should write he) rort on the humanitarian infrastructure of the developing world (hospitals power stations schools) not to mention the killing of innocent civilians including the old and the frail. Today the US (Government) can only take without payment.

Is this what we celebrate with Champagne and the vulgar flag waving of the Stars and Stripes. A Flag originally intended as was the Statue of Liberty to be a symbol of emancipation, hope justice and freedom for all..

All we’re left with is not much more than a cup of bad instant coffee, to cheer the death of one evil man who is supposed to make us feel good but in a flash that euphoria is gone.

There can be no celebration for the end of the Afghanistan War because the war isn’t close to ending. We are told on the one hand the war must continue but on the other we are pulling out! Even though we are told there are no more al Qaeda left in Afghanistan now conveniently re –named al Qaeda in Pakistan the War continues. There are still have 120,000 NATO troops there apparently fighting a very small number of Terrorists. We are fighting the Taliban, too, but the Taliban are Afghan citizens and a product of the environment the US created along with OBL against the Soviets.

They are not an invading force, and, for a long time now the Afghan Government corrupt as it is has wanted a dialogue with them. As President Jimmy Carter has pointed out for a tenth of a tenth of the cost of all the Arms Munitions and lives lost you could buy off the Taliban to be “Good Guys”. But of course you wouldn’t then have the shop window to show off your weapons for sale though Libya is now providing just the opportunity to test and show off the latest US and European fighter bomber aircraft.

Guess what it’s all a crock o shit. If you believe what you are told by the mainstream media than I suggest you get into the business of manufacturing Poppies and set up an additional revenue stream with some stone masons.

I find few people who are really convinced about the story of how Bin Laden was killed. Yes we agree he is dead but where and when is what is questioned by absolutely all who move in my circle or I engage in the polemic.

Just how was this CIA Creation killed?

At last count the story from the Pentagon changed as many times as there have been days since the first reports

It went from on day one (remember the President of the United States and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton where watching live) with OBL firing on the troops with one hand and using his wife as a human shield with the other, to now with some change episodes in-between to there being no single person in the main house, including bin Laden, being armed. You will recall in my last post questioning where were all the pock marks a spent shells of the 45 minute fire fight we were originally told about.

We were told the helicopter stalled then crashed landing on a brick wall (how embarrassing) to be shot down by one single armed terrorist. Who was probably the gardener who threw a pitchfork at it. Who knows what to believe?

We were told there was a small team of SEALS if I recall we were originally told 9 or so that which then ballooned out to 49.

We are now told the single person armed who fired a weapon was the courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.

Homeland Security Adviser John Brennan stated day one a female was used as a shield to shield bin Laden from the fire. This statement was backed up by a Senior Defence official, who told reporters at a Defence Department briefing that, “One woman, who was used as a human shield by one of the four military-age males on the compound, was killed; he [OBL] was firing from behind her.”

Two days later it was debunked by White House spokesman Jay Carney’s statement. There was a woman on the first floor of the compound who was killed “in the cross fire,” he said.

Later she is reported as being shot in the foot and so the story on this aspect unravels. Remember the US President is watching all this live.

This statement by Homeland Security Adviser John Brennan at the White House press briefing the day after at the left unanswered one of the question of the operation: Was bin Laden armed? Brennan’s answer implied that he was, but at the following briefing, Jay Carney reported “He was not armed,” Bin Laden did “resist” but he declined to elaborate except to say “resistance does not require a firearm.”

We were told that Bin Laden’s body was immediately flown out to the Carrier but then this changed that the body was first flown to Afghanistan

Night opps

The explanation that the helicopters could approach undetected into a country with a history of wars with India a nuclear arsenal is explained now by the revelation of ‘stealth’ helicopters.

If one of these helicopters could enter silently into Pakistani airspace due to technological enhancements how could it apparently crash-land without a sound?. On the subject of stealth if you listen to the comparison sound recordings of a standard chopper and the sound bite released of a stealth chopper the both sound pretty loud to me though the tone is different. The only analogy to illustrate what I mean might be the differences between 4 stroke and 2 stroke engines or perhaps a diesel.

Any how could such a large machine, weighing many tons crash-land into a concrete barrier and not make a sound? How could the F-16s and air defences of Pakistan at the time be stood down for over an hour?

Incidentally if Pakistan is such an unreliable ally why is military support continues to be supplied?

All these discrepancies plus others have created a lot of suspicion about what really happened. Did it happen 11 days ago if not when? We were later informed the CIA knew of OBLs hiding place since August 2010. How so?

This is all very perplexing but nothing changes as this clip from Vietnam shows

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyhpnDpe1xI&feature=related

Special Forces Rangers SAS Spetnatz or US Navy SEALs are trained to follow orders without question. When in action there is no time to stop and think; too much depends on speed and agility, to secure the target and outcome of the mission. They also accept as do all well-trained soldiers the possibility of their own death.

Therefore before going on this mission there were specific orders for the raid in Abbottabad. If one accepts this premise they were given orders to not bring bin Laden back alive.US Navy SEALs are highly trained precise and lethal. They killed every adult male but they also took care to not harm a single one of the nine children who were there.

They are not a Rambo-style operation that goes in guns blazing, spraying bullets. They can even kill with dental floss in hand.They act swiftly and with expert precision. Braggarts aren’t tolerated well, and members are not rock stars….like

I wonder how these professionals now feel being so grandstanded in this way by their Government.

Perhaps it’s just to sell more of these

Again I reiterate my last post the world of decent fair-minded people deserved that this man be forced to stand trial in front of the world. Where is our justice for the world?

We are not the Taliban, al Qaeda or Nazis. Ours should be not just the system of revenge or extremism. Those who died in 9/11 or subsequent attacks would have been killed in vain their lives further wasted if we sink to the level of OBL. We need to maintain our belief in fairness in the Judiciary and Egalitarian Democracy. This is what our children fight for? We think we call it *Justice…They do not fight for raging capitalism…ask anyone. They believe they fight for freedom. They are being misled.

This is what the Director Leon E. Panetta (famous for the “CIA Misled Congress for a Number of Years quote”)] said May 2^nd….

“Though Bin Ladin is dead, al-Qa’ida is not. The terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge him, and we must—and will—remain vigilant and resolute…… The only leader they have ever known, whose hateful vision gave rise to their atrocities, is no more. The supposedly uncatchable one has been caught and killed. And we will not rest until every last one of them has been delivered to justice”.

Bin Laden should have been put on trial. As a person who presented to the Holocaust Museum in Sydney a UN record of German War Crimes in Poland. A trial OF OBL would have given the whole decent world a permanent historic record of his WAR crimes.

This is why the Nazis were tried in Nuremberg. A trial would not have been for Bin Laden but for us.

The Nuremburg trial were done for us born after the War “Lest we forgot” It was done to highlight how ordinary children ordinary everyday people as the Nazi were can grow into monsters. Nuremburg was also done for the German people so they could see the evidence of their collective crime. I am reminded of a Russian Film “Come and See” The very final frames of the film are most telling and if you want to fully understand the context of what I write I suggest you get a DVD.

One of the discomforts of putting OBL on trial is that he would most likely remind the World like Noriega of Panama Diem in Vietnam that he was once a mercenary, funded and armed by the US to fight the other Evil Empire in the last battle of the Cold War.

Trouble was when that killing stopped “Frankenstein” aka OBL went on KILLING and to turn on his creator. Bin Laden should have been displayed on trial to put to rest his myth like these images of these arrogant Nazi Bastards

German Generals Humiliated

“Blow Back” the CIA call it and here is a reason

Libya Update: “The US has been there done that”

A no fly zone It seems to me that since the start of the NATO intervention there have been no Libyan jets flying for the past 6 weeks. So why are we still in action ?

Just how many command centers can there be left to bomb?

So this raises the question if the real reason was to stop Libya being able to mount air attacks why the continuation of the NATO Bombing?

Could it be the wave of Middle East revolutions was a false flag from the start and the ultimate target for the US was always going to be Libya

There are some more interesting facts that are coming to light

Gaddafi was going to start using a new gold dinar and planned that Libyan oil is purchased with it.

Libyans were receiving a “social” wage, every Libyan of working age received the equivalent of $US 1,000 a month and it was up to them whether they worked or not.

Gaddafi was putting money back into the community and had also made all education free.Libya was almost free of debt and were not locked to the World Bank or IMF

The next thing we know we have a popular uprising. Given the high rate of indices see my previous blog post and the fact that Gaddafi was developing an enormous system of underground aqueducts, to turn Libya’s of Northern Sahara into farmland why would (if this is true) why would the population rebel?

Syria Note:

I haven’t had the time yet to research Syria fully however very briefly; have you noticed the unrest is occurring in towns that Border both Jordan Iraq and Turkey. Is it that the ongoing riots in Syria “is deliberately contrived to take the attention away from Libya.

The Net Tightens

Of course if you understood my assertion about the Germans and the Spanish Civil war and the desire for the Mediterranean to be a controlled sea for the free passage of oil you can see slowly a ring being formed today with counties (NATO) loyal to or subject to US influence. This ring also creates the further drive to isolate the Russians and the Black Sea.

“Nothing Changes”

Hopefully I will get to upload in the non to distant future more music I still have the Music of the Revolution to post . I do have some more slow food recipes for fast people to post, maybe how to make a good coffee? I should do something perhaps on my model making and workshop. What I am reading and so on including comment on domestic Australian Politics.

Well that’s it from me See you soon Davie

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Posted in Bin Laden, Clinton, Gadaffi, In search of stupidity, Libya, Music, NATO, No Fly Zone, No Fly Zone, Social comment, Spainish Civil War, War Child | Tags: al Qaeda, Bin Laden, CIA, Gadaffi, Human Rights, Libya, Libya Feb17 Gadaffi, North Africa, Oil, War Crimes

Posted by: daviemacdonald | May 4, 2011

Bin Laden and Terrorism

Some thoughts on Bin Ladin. Some I have I have previously tweeted but also some thoughts that have emerged over the past few hours.

Fundamental to all this is a key belief of mine.

Generally the [Advanced] World is or should be against the death penalty; whatever the crime committed and yesterday both in Libya and Pakistan was not a big day for democracy.

I am in fierce opposition to the death penalty and there is no exception to that fundamental principle. Cruelty is not to be answered with cruelty. I believe that there were other possible means to revenge the orchestrated and or committed by Bin Laden.

The death penalty is not the right answer.” I believe the execution of Bin Laden will have a negative impact and that he will now become a martyr. You don’t fight barbarism with acts that are also barbaric. The death penalty is not compatible with the advances human condition nor is it with democracy.

This entire operation looks like a [highly] staged fairytale. The United States hasn’t proved that it has iron-clad, video-taped evidence regarding the operation and how the body was transferred to land-locked Afghanistan first, then to be dumped at sea.

For over 10 years, there have been many reports of Bin Laden’s death including Pakistani Presidents Benazir Bhutto in 2007 Pervez Musharraf in 2002 and US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2003.

Now with Bin Ladin officially gone the US might move away from seeing the shadowy form of Al-Qaeda as its chief enemy in “the War on Terror”, and refocus on nation state enemies like Libya, Syria and Iran. It will also help to increase support to the Islamists implicated with association with Al-Qaeda in Benghazi

It is also fact that Barack Obama is going into a new election cycle in 2012. Bin Laden’s death is good for wartime president. This gives the us some credence overseas now after the mud of Iraq Afghanistan and more recently Libya.

From the rhetoric of Hilary Clinton’s speech yesterday we can see if the US chooses to engage in a new conflict like in Libya or in Iran over the next 12 months, this is going to help Obama get re-elected.

I thought I would set out some bullet points of thought some that have been part of my tweets yesterday.

It seems we have learned nothing from the missing body of Hitler and the Bunker in 1944.

Obama called it justice! Justice for whom? Justice would have been to have brought this man in front of a court for trial so the world could have really seen what a decrepit figure he was He would have been seen just like the Nazi Criminals at Nuremberg. This is an opportunity lost

We the world has been denied our justice.

Now we know IF HE WAS executed yesterday was it because he would have implicated others in the role that was played in the days of the fighting with Stinger missiles against the Soviets. Is this why he was dumped in the sea?

Who did give him arms in the days he fought the Russians?

Bin Laden recieving Arms from Brzezinski

Had he been put on trial who else he might have also implicated in his crimes.

The Aftermath

We are told he was buried at sea to forestall there being a place of memorial for his followers. Those who ever participate in the laying of wreaths in the North Sea the Atlantic for all those unknown losses of seamen in the 2^nd World War will understand that is a nonsense to suggest.

The memorials to unknown soldiers around the World prove you do not need a body to create a place of remembrance. No one is buried at the Cenotaph in Whitehall London or at the Australian War Memorial or for that matter Trafalgar Square.

The question of not having a place for burial to forestall a place of pilgrimage. What rubbish. I wonder where Adolf Eichmann is buried. As he was now dead affording him Muslims burial rights? He distorted the Koran and was a War criminal why not cremation?

By not taking him alive the opportunity to interrogate (I stress not torture we should be above such behaviour) denies the opportunity to investigate his criminal network. All the Nazi criminals at Nuremberg were interrogated for this very reason.

We are told it was a luxury Mansion It looked a pretty poor piece of luxury to me…a crack den more like! :-).

If there was such a fire fight of 45 minutes where are all the bullet pock marks on the walls. With all the rubbish strewn about why in the video I have seen are there no spent cartridges?

To the right this is the picture released yesterday supposedly that is Bin Laden. Problem is they were released several years ago to the press in UK ( I did display the pictures yesterday 4 May but to confirm the fakes were released several years ago I have removed them for the time being) 6th may as the pictures were indeed fakes there is no point in posting them just for the sake of it…they are gruesome and serve no purpose.

Why the initial reluctance to show the body. In other times such as the death of Himmler or Goering Mussolini Nicolae Ceaușescu Saddam’s sons were shown We were also shown the Hanging of Saddam.

Nazi Leaders executed

Why were we first told that Bin Ladin was armed he died in a firefight and now this has suddenly changed?

Finally Is it just co-incidence this action occurred on the very day after the killing of Gadaffi’s Son Grand Children in what turns out was a strike not in Gaddafi compound but in a residential neighbourhood. Some of the World ready to condemn was now looking the other way.

So to priority 2 … deleted 25 03 2022

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Posted in Bin Laden, Blogging, Libya, Politics, Social comment | Tags: al Qaeda, Bin Laden, Bradley Manning, defacto, Family Law, Human Rights, Oil, property rights, War Crimes

Posted by: daviemacdonald | May 2, 2011

Vultures over Libya

“Libyan Rebel commander admits his fighters have al Qaeda Connections”

Hasidi Rebel Leader

“Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, aka Abdelhakim Belhadj the Libyan rebel leader, has said Jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.”

In an interview with an Italian newspaper “Il Sole 24 Ore”, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against US UK and coalition troops in Iraq.

Some of them, he said, are “today are on the front lines in Adjabiya”.

He stated his fighters “are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,” but added that the “members of Al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader”.

FOUGHT AGAINST US IN AFGHANISTAN

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against “the foreign invasion” in Afghanistan, before being “captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan”. He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

US and British government agree Mr al-Hasidi was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which killed dozens of Libyan troops in guerrilla attacks around Derna and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.

All of the above explains all there is to explain:

This is the leader of the rebels whom 50% are “anonymous”. No matter what anyone says the “rebels” are in the open in their animosity to the rest of the “tribes and people of Libya” that have prospered during the last 40 years.

Mr al-Hasidi isn’t opposed to words like genocide or ethnic cleansing, but for the sensitivities of the Western such terms are renamed like conflict and revolution.

The following Video ink could not be described as pro Gaddafi especially with the descriptive of it but it shows the links of the Libya Rebels with Al-Qaeda

A FEW MILITARY ADVISERS = MISSION CREEP

So it is to these people who the UK Ministry of Defence the French and the Italians are now sending military advisers to Libya. This is seen by those of us who recall the creeping of US involvement with advisers in Vietnam as the most significant step so far towards deploying NATO ground troops. Though there is plenty of evidence to suggest this has been going on for some time with Black Opps men and arms being supplied through Benghazi and Mistrata.

If this continues Libya will likely become another failed state like Afghanistan or Somalia

Who is arming the Rebels.

A NATO INVASION:

The French US British and Italians forces have been engaged in the Libya’s civil conflict for more than 6 weeks and since when were US armed predator drones ever been used or could be used to enforce a no fly zone Now the task is to seek and destroy the Libyan leader’s arsenal and with the attack on his compound obviously assassinate Gaddafi.

All this has been done against a backdrop of continued accusation against the Libyan of attacking civilians but the problem is the Rebels are “civilians” and have chosen to fight in the streets of Mistrata.

Anybody who has studied the tactics of street fighting will know that the number of civilian casualties is incredibly small given the intensity of the fighting today and the alleged indiscriminate attacks by Government troops on civilians.

Tripoli has renewed calls for international experts to visit the country to assess the scale of violence against civilians while insisting claims that over 10,000 have died since the beginning of the clashes are exaggerated.

NO EVIDENCE GADDAFI BOMBED “HIS PEOPLE”

A freelance journalist and member of British Civilians for Peace in Libya, Sukant Chandan, was part of the first international group to be invited to examine the civilian losses in the conflict and has just returned from Libya. He reports that the places they had visited showed no indication whatsoever that they had been bombed by Gaddafi’s forces.

What is clear is “There have been no UN international investigative teams that have been organised to investigate the NATO bombings.”

British Civilians for Peace in Libya easily got information about civilian casualties in Tripoli by visiting mortuary’s and families of those who had been killed in bombings by NATO. Of course all the western media are unable to report such things as they have chosen to remain with the Rebel Forces.

As tweeted by me several days ago with graphic video there have been lynching’s of black-skinned people in Benghazi and public be-headings of captured Libyan soldiers in Benghazi and any parts of eastern Libya controlled by rebels.

This is a video from a British Television Program “The World Today”

CALLS FOR PEACE:

Recently a delegation of Women for Peace from Tripoli went to Benghazi to plead for a ceasefire; they were met with a hail of gunfire from the Rebel Forces. The sound track from the a phone video of this incident was recently used by the ABC Radio as a sound bite for a report of an attack by Syrian Forces against civilians in Syria; such are the lies and distortions made by Western main stream media.

In an earlier ABC Radio reported on the reporter being shown phone images of Gaddafi soldiers who had been apparently executed by the Government for refusing to fire on protestors.It turned out that these images of these executed men were also posted to you tube.

They were in fact Libyan Soldiers captured by the Rebels who were then (shown on you tube ) bashed tortured and executed by the rebels.

Warning This is a lengthy and very Graphic video

You will see the captured Libyan soldiers interrogated and then brutally executed.

For 5 weeks Libyans have endured air strike after air strike by NATO forces in the middle of an increasingly violent civil war. And with little to show for it, the deadlocked war is causing widespread concern about its cost.

In the UK Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Member of Parliament said along with a growing number of British MPs.

“I think the situation just deepened and probably got rather worse,…..

Britain is putting troops in on the ground as advisers.

I think it’s very dangerous, we are involved in a civil war for which there’s no parliamentary authority.”

MONEY FOR WAR NONE FOR HEALTH:

So how much is the intervention in Libya is costing the British taxpayer? Early estimates suggested the bill could run to US$5 million a day.

That means a month’s offensive may have cost the UK as much as $225 million. This is at a time when the UK is slashing spending on public services, leading to widespread, often violent, and demonstrations.

Lindsey German from the ‘Stop the War Coalition’.

“This is an incredible amount of money when they say there’s no money available….. “We could every week be building a new hospital, several new schools and we could be paying the student tuition fees which are going up to GBP 9,000 [pounds] a year next year.”

The cuts in the Defence budget had already begun but ironically, experts say that has made the Libyan war more expensive. Now that the UK no longer has an aircraft carrier, every mission is longer and logistically harder.

MISSION CREEP:

The situation today is a stalemate. Gaddafi is still in control of most of Libya and therefore must obviously have the support of the majority of Libyans Peace seems no nearer, and NATO appears to be settling in for the long haul, until the Libyans themselves can negotiate a deal. Though the Rebels at every turn refuse talks.

After 5 weeks of air strikes, UK forces look more inextricably involved perhaps more so than the French and Italians, in the conflict than ever.

A week ago Foreign Secretary William Hague announced the deployment of experienced military officers to Libya to help the rebels improve military organizational structures and logistics. He stressed that advisers would not be involved in supplying weapons to the rebels.

However on this last point it is clear that the supply of weapons to the Rebels had been occurring long before the airstrikes. The airstrikes of course now appear to be conducted by the Unofficial Rebel Air force

With France and Italy have both announced that they will send similar contingents to the Civil War-torn North-African country.

DRONES:

The USA is now using drones in Libya – an escalation of the operation – but with civilians killed almost daily by drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan ir is clear that contrary to protecting civilians we will see even more collateral deaths

Eric Stoner, editor of WagingNonViolence.org. …..

“The use of drones is pretty much cheaper than fighter jets, but since the war in Libya has no end in sight, the situation starts to resemble the war in Iraq,” “It really reminds me of [Donald] Rumsfeld who said before the invasion of Iraq ‘five days, five weeks, five months – but no longer than that’,”

The stalemate continues. NATO remains without triumph. This is going to be a long hall as the Libyans fight for the sovereignty of their land.

The World looks on hapless at the misleading evidence put forward and the resolution 1973.

WORLD LEADERS:

The leaders of Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa met in China on April 14. For discussions on their mutual trade relations, These five countries are all current members of the UN Security Council, and all took part in the debate and vote over Resolution 1973 (to authorize the no-fly zone over Libya). While Brazil, China, India and Russia abstained from the vote, South Africa went along with it after Jacob Zuma received a phone call from Barack Obama.

At that meeting in China the five states agreed that the military option had got nowhere and that “all parties should resolve their differences through peaceful means and dialogue in which the UN and regional organizations should as appropriate play their role.”

Jacob Zuma went to China after a visit to see Col Gaddafi and an African Union Peace Delegation on Libya was formed. The Delegation included heads of government from Mali and Uganda and Foreign Ministers from Uganda and Mauritania.

African Union Peace Delegation

Members of the delegation were

President Touré from Mali. In 1991, as head of the parachute commandos he overthrew the dictatorship of Moussa Traoré (who governed Mali from 1968), returning over the Country to civilian rule. He is known as “The Soldier of Democracy.”

Ten years later, Touré returned to politics, and has since won two elections country.

From Uganda there was Foreign Minister Okello his father was president of Uganda in the 1980s. He studied in Britain before he returned to Uganda, He was an active member in the Juba peace talks with the Lord’s Resistance Army.

President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz who conducted a coup in Mauritania, he resigned his Military position to campaign for and won the election to the presidency in 2009.

Denis Sassou Nguesso; president of Congo Brazzaville since the 1997 Civil War. Though he first came to power in 1979. Sassou Nguesso shares much in common with Gaddafi holding radical socialist views. He is the leader of The Congolese Party of Labour)

In 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union he, was ousted from power but after a civil war returned to being head of government. In 2002 Sassou Nguesso was re-elected in open and democratic elections.

Sassou Nguesso with Obama

The credibility of these 4 on the peace mission to Tripoli and Benghazi is as good as anyone’s

US AND UN STAND IN THE WAY OF PEACE:

On March 10, this delegation had organised to travel to Tripoli and engage Gaddafi to draw back his troops from Benghazi. However French attacks on Libya (March 19) on the heels of the UN resolution 1973 (March 17) stopped the delegation and the UN refused to allow them to proceed, despite assurances from both Tripoli and Benghazi that they would entertain the mediation.

BAN KI MOON

It is notable that Ban Ki- Moon and the UN stopped the peace envoys preferring bombardment. Though it is telling that in the UN’s Security Council “emergency room” there is a mural It showcases everyday life in Northern Europe. At its bottom and at the center there is a phoenix, emergent from the flames, around which stand people who might just be “Eastern” (the women here have their faces covered, and the men wear turbans). A field artillery gun points at these people. It is their fate. Under such AN illusion, the UN Security Council deliberated its action in Libya.

In April the African Union team with European Union approval was finally allowed to visit the two centers of the Libyan conflict.

NATO:

On April 10, this African Union team met with Gaddafi. It’s mission was also welcomed by an increasingly desperate NATO command, whose inability to enforce a military breakthrough has called into question its power.

NATO spokeswoman Romanian Oana Lungescu said of the African Union trip, that

“the alliance has always made it clear that there could be no purely military solution to this crisis.”

Gaddafi agreed with a African Union proposals for:

An immediate ceasefire,

Unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid to all of Libya,

Protection of foreign nation’s delegations and agreeing to enter into a dialogue with Benghazi for a political settlement.

Oana Lungescu said If this were to begin, then NATO airstrikes would be suspended.

Oana Lungescu at NATO Press Conference

The African Union Team minus Zuma went to Benghazi but The rebels’ leaders were not interested in a ceasefire or a peaceful solution and rejected all proposals.

The lack of political movement is a direct consequence of the US and NATO “humanitarian intervention.” It has hardened the Rebels and made dialogue unnecessary for the Rebels.

Western journalists from The BBC and ABC Fox news etc continue to fan the conflict with misreporting and mindless or blindness reaction the consequences of the fighting and particularly the street fighting in Mistrata

THOSE WHO CALLED FOR INTERVENTION IN LIBYA stated…

Gadaffi would massacre the populations of Benghazi, as they now tell the journalists that there will be a massacre in Mistrata. But nothing like this has occurred in any of the towns being fought over or that have been re taken by Libyan troops. On contrary there is much evidence emerging that shows that it is the rebels are guilty of such War Crimes

Air strikes over 5 weeks have not dampened Gaddafi’S resolve. It is unlikely that an escalated military intervention will do any more other than galvanise further the Libyan people and other North Africans not in defence of Gaddafi but against European occupation previously experienced at the hands of the British French Spanish and Italians.

I wonder if the NATO and Qaddafi’s survival is premised on the destruction of those who oppose him. Similarly, the rebels say that Gaddafi’s eviction, not to say, termination, is a sine qua non which means translated from the Latin “without which not” (something that is indispensable and necessary)

This is a recipe for protracted civil war and a failed state.

HILLARY CLINTON:

Hillary Clinton stated that the military intervention in *Ivory Coast “sends a strong signal to dictators and tyrants throughout the region and the world” that they “may not disregard the voice of their own people.”

Obviously Clinton wasn’t thinking of the Despotic and un democratic regimes that make up the Arab League (who also sanctioned action against Libya) when she made this statement was she?.

This is the list of the Arab League with population’s sizes in millions. See if you can pick which ones have a democratically elected Government and the ones Hillary Clinton was referring too?

Egypt 80 Sudan 44 Algeria 36 Morocco 32 Iraq 31 Saudi Arabia 27 Yemen 24 Syria 23 Tunisia 11 Somalia 10 Libya 6.5 Jordan 6,5 United Arab Emirates 5

Lebanon 4 Palestinian territories 4,2 Kuwait 3,5 Mauritania 3,2 Oman 3 Qatar 2 Bahrain 1,2 Djibouti 864k 22 Comoros 691k

Arab League by area

*Ivory Coast aka Cote D’ivoir

With an agreed 44% of the vote, President GBagbo was certainly a more legitimate candidate for democracy than the Rebels of Benghazi are today!

A UN official said of these events in Cote D’ivoir stated,

“The action in the Ivory Coast was given a psychological lift by the fact that it [happened] against the backdrop of Libya, and supports Mr. Obama’s narrative that intervention is justified despite political deadlock and a divided policy”

LIBYA REBELS; NO NEED FOR PEACE

The Benghazi rebels are now convinced according to Colonel Ahmed Bani the rebel spokesman resplendent in his new American Army supplied “Dress Uniform” that NATO’s no-fly zone will soon morph into full on arms supplies and “boots on the ground”

The Rebels have no need to seek a peaceful solution.

Nothing short of riding an M1 Abrams tank into Tripoli, greeted with flowers and sweets, is now acceptable. This is the reason why they did not see eye-to-eye with the African Union delegation or will accept any idea of a peaceful solution

The Rebels think that the regime in Tripoli is like the Qing dynasty during the Taiping Rebellion 1850 , and that Qaddafi’s “dissolution must follow as surely as that of any mummy carefully preserved in a hermetically sealed coffin, whenever it is brought into contact with the open air” (Marx on the Qing).

Such a state has not occurred, and it did not occur in China. The Qing defeated the Taiping but becoming further drawn into European orbit control. The rebels, like the contras I Nicaragua and Mujahedin in Afghanistan are ultimately dispensable to the NATO.

The result of the Qing victory was later to lead to the Boxer uprising in 1901

Foriegn Intervention in China

China 1901 Libya 2011

NATO SUPPORT IS NOT PERMANENT:

From such hardened positions, the way forward is difficult to surmise. The easy answer from London to Washington from Paris to QATAR is for greater military force against Tripoli.

Libya with a population of just 6.5 million people is poised to being destroyed for the purposes of “higher” commercial gain; not humanitarian aims.

The control of Oil, Natural Gas and the creation of a US controlled NATO Mediterranean to secure the passage of oil and isolate Russia further is paramount.

This idea of control of the Mediterranean dates back as far as the Romans, The Royal Navy with the Battle of Trafalgar and the Nile The Germans and Italians in the 2nd World War. Democracy matters not so long as the regimes are friendly to US aim un democratic regimes.

There are Risks

On March 2, before the conflict heated up, Hillary Clinton warned

if the rebels did not prevail Libya might become “a giant Somalia.”

On March 30, Qaddafi’s former confidant, Moussa Koussa said,

“I ask everybody to avoid taking Libya into civil war. This would lead to so much blood and Libya would be a new Somalia.”

After saying that he was spirited of the stage quick smart. There again he has been compared to Rudolf Hess as being mentally unstable

Rudolf Hess (Hitlers Deputy)

US FAIL TO JUSTIFY GOING TO WAR:

US President Barack Obama exaggerated the humanitarian claims used to justify military action in Libya he UN the US and NATO have made their case for going to war and they have failed:

“Civilians were being targeted and that Gaddafi would kill them all if intervention did not take place. This was frankly a lie

Obama also said…

“We knew if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world,”

The Smell of an oily Rag

HRW

A report by Human Rights Watch shows that Gaddafi was not deliberately killing civilians but rather targeting armed rebels fighters who were targeting his government troops and Gaddafi civilian supporters in Benghazi.

The NATO intervention has not stopped the killing and may have in fact put civilians at greater risk by emboldening rebel fighters. It has placed civilians at risk in between the government and rebels creating a civil war and causing greater casualties.

Alan J Kuperman

Alan J. Kuperman,who is Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin, says…..

there is simply no evidence Gaddafi was targeting civilians, therefore there is no possibility Obama could have had evidence or reason to enter Libya and begin a military intervention……..Gaddafi is targeting rebel fighters. There was never a bloodbath of civilians at the hands of Gaddafi.

“If Gaddafi were trying to massacre civilians there would be thousands killed, not a couple hundred killed,” “My rough guess at this point is we have actually increased the net suffering to civilians in Libya,”

Kuperman has published articles and book chapters on ethnic conflict, U.S. military intervention and nuclear proliferation.

He is also Coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program, and leads a Pentagon-funded project on Constitutional Design and Conflict Management in Africa.

Kupermanis the author of The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda (Brookings, 2001) and co-editor of Gambling on Humanitarian Intervention: Moral Hazard, Rebellion, and Civil War (Routledge, 2006).

As I wrote in an earlier post on Libya: Gaddafi said he would show no mercy to rebels who continued to fight, he did not speak about civilians. He said rebel fighters who laid down their arms and surrendered would receive mercy.

“Civilians are now caught in the middle of this war

The UN and NATO haven’t stopped a bloodbath but are prolonging and perpetuating the suffering of civilians in Libya.”

Clearly Obama exaggerated the threat.

The international community should stay out of the internal issues of a sovereign state contended and intervention should be used as a [threat], a last result only if civilians are truly targeted by either side.

Footnotes:

1) Gaddafi son Killed

The Bombing of the compound was clearly done in a residential area

Saif al Arab was considered the least problematic of Gaddafi immediate family; he had no ties to the Libyan government or military. U.S. diplomats described Saif al Arab as a “ne’er-do-well” and “the least publicly known of Gaddafi children” in a confidential March 2009 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, released by WikiLeaks.

2) Warning this video is very graphic and disturbing !!! New World Order Funded Al Qaeda Rebels Saw off Surrendered Libyan Soldiers Head.

3) 101 years ago…… Boxer Rebellion …. what has changed?

Boxer Beheading 1901

PERSONAL STUFF

It has been a little while since my last post and even more since my last article on Libya. This has been frustrating and most recently my time was taken up over the past week-end attending Progressive Australia Conference

Prior to that as you might imagine researching the content for posts such as this take a huge amount of time and I am a “one man band” As the events unfold what I am about to post has the be revised to keep some currency of the news.

My time has also been taken up almost fully over the past 7 days with my legal matters collating material preparing documents for court and attending lengthy legal conferences and the like. But it is time well spent and all is going very well.

I am still sorting out my new abode and building my workshop which is where I do a lot of my thinking and tinkering. I have also been supervising building works in my little house.

A new deck and new paved back yard and having the outside painted. So these have been busy days but I am a very happy chap with Libya excepted.

I have had some critical health issues that those of you who know me in real-time know about and I am pleased to-say that is all coming good though I am not able to sack my medicos just yet…but it won’t be long.

At the conference for a Progressive Australia I attended I managed to discard my walking sticks for the entire 2 days.

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Posted in Gadaffi, Libya, NATO, No Fly Zone, Politics, War Child | Tags: al Qaeda, Boxer Rebellion, CIA, Gadaffi, Human Rights, Libya, Libya Feb17 Gadaffi, NATO, North Africa, Oil, Reggae, USA, War Crimes

Posted by: daviemacdonald | April 11, 2011

Alien Space Cats, Gadaffi and World Domination

1 May Update Service will be resumed soon. Supervising Building work in my little house.

Legal matter; document preparation, collation of reams of evidence, 2 legal conferences have frustratingly given no time to make an entry here.

I have been doing much research on North Africa so much more will be coming soon once the cast on my arm has been removed. I will then be able to key stroke more easily though my ability to type and spell will be as pathetic as ever.

There are lots coming with updates on Libya, now Syria and music etc I hope to be back later today

20 April Update: Reason for lack of posting over the past week is simply one of time contraints concerning my on going health issues. I have also been hobbling around restoring my garden furniture, supervising building work in my little house; I have just had a new back patio laid..so keeping the workmen happy is with expert brews of coffee and tea is important.

Domesticated cats have been around for five thousand years or more. They were sacred animals to the Egyptians. Now I can reveal the shocking truth and that if you are smart you will want to keep on the right side of you neighbourhood cat(s) Better still get your own.

Let me come straight to the point. A little while ago I decided to take some pictures of my cats to post on my blog. A standard fall back item if one is a bit stretched getting up a post or two. It then struck me as I reviewed the images. …..Terror. My Cats are Aliens and the probability is yours are too.

Ever wondered where trance music came from and why well if you listen to this (at your own risk) as you read you will understand.

If you look at this you will understand why. These are my own Alien Cats…more correctly I’m their human. At the end of this post you will see the Gaddafi connection to this post. Its scary:-) Their Earth Names are Roger (The fluffy Norwegian Forest Cat) Emma (the one disguised as a Burmese with the crown) Tom ( The Red Cat with the Rabbits head) and Rosa Luxemburg ( Just developing the EYES).

Roger an Alien Cat

At first I thought it was just a case of “red-eye” but being colour blind I wasn’t sure so I showed what I thought was just a series of cute pictures to a friend of mine. No “red eye” but GREEN glowing eyes. It is obvious that Roger lies like this to communicate better with signals from Space.

Roger has the alien eye

I then started doing some research an found out that cats are alien creatures, you have to ask yourselves why, in five thousand years why haven’t the aliens done what they want to do with us….or have they?

Why have they not taken over the planet?

Fact is they have and you are about to see the evidence in this post. They have even developed their own personal transport system

Why would any civilization smarter than ours hang around us for five thousand years disguised at cats? Well it’s very simple.

We work Cats don’t,

We feed them for nothing

we have instituted a whole medical system to maintain their health the cost of which they contribute nothing to. We pay

Oh yes they may look cute but that has been part of the whole scheme to take over the planet. This was the main theme of the Broadway musical Cats, a theme which was largely ignored by theatre critics.

They even have their own elite….Royalty (The picture is to be uploaded) This Cat “Emma” did not have a crown when I took this picture

Though they are as earthbound as you and me for the last few years, their alien cousins have been using them as living cameras. I took some pretty ordinary pictures when I was at the Vet in Rose Bay Sydney. You can imagine the horror I felt when I saw the pictures when I uploaded it. I wonder if the Crown also doubles for an aerial?

Alien Cats for sale see the kittlien

Have you ever wondered why cats disappear for a time, sometimes for ten minutes HALF AN HOUR, sometimes for a couple of days. You cannot find them. It is during these times that they are under direct control of their intergalactic friends. Minute cameras, smaller than a pin head, are inserted into the eye of these cats.

They then send back direct signals to those in spacecraft who are monitoring the cats. Or more to the point, monitoring YOU and I. They may even check you business records like this

Checking my documents

Why does your cat stare at you when IT wants to.

Why does it insist on bathroom privacy?

Why does it insist on following you into the bathroom when you want privacy? Even this last bastion of security has gone according to this video the cat will be waiting

Why does it leap onto your lap when IT wants to, not when YOU want it to, like a dog would?

Why does cat food taste worse than dog food?

You don’t have to be a genius like me to add two and two together. In this case, the math answer is two cats plus two cats usually equals four aliens.

The cat’s purr, which comes from nobody knows where, is merely the software on the minute onboard computer being reconfigured every so often. I will be in trouble for writing this, but that’s nothing new.

Who is your Vet really?

Have you really got to know your vet?

Do you know where they live?

Do you ever see them arrive to the surgery?

Do you ever get invited to see out the back? The answer is no, no, no, no. Here is another example of the cats checking out stuff in my office all caught in the act.

The eyes have it

Even more disturbing is the micro chip Have you ever seen one? This is the onboard computer.

I am in my office now door closed my thoughts are my own. The one chance you have is to fed the cats and then you can slip away to have some time to yourself without interference.

Here we are on Planet Earth, busily pointing our radio-telescopes at the sky in the search for alien transmissions. Hundreds of people are in therapy for alien abduction and missing time episodes which modern neurology attributes to temporal lobe epilepsy.

Thousands of people have seen glowing lights which may or may not be space ships and may or may not be a flight into Sydney Melbourne or any large City. Canberra is the exception as the aliens have less interest there as it lacks the joys of alley ways farmyards, or anything of much interest.

Some have seen the aliens among us – they are men in black or men in gray, they have luminous skins or gray skins with high foreheads, bald pates and large dark almond-shaped eyes. Some maintain that the US Government is covering up a crash-landed alien vessel. There was an announcement only this last week. Fact is the aliens are already here. CATS (Complex Alien Tracking Syndication)

In fact, millions of people live with aliens in their own homes. They live among us unnoticed. They go about their mysterious daily business unnoticed. They are small and furry and lack useable thumbs. They are cats. They suck us in by being just like this oh so cute…but make a move to the kitchen and they are there in a flash

Roger and Emma Yes looks cute but…

Even more worrying is the fact that these small, furry, friendly aliens have just about taken over all of the land mass of Planet Earth. Why else do you think we have been building submarines? Have you ever heard of the submarine cat? No only the Ships cat! Even in Trafalgar Square London you have the Lions….. are these part of some mysterious earth to space communication station. Have a look at it from above. It is looks like one huge Ariel with a face…so you tell me what else it is?.

Trafalgar-Square-London

Contacting the Mothership

When a cat sits there in the middle of the living room floor staring into space, what is it doing? Is it pondering the mysteries of feline life or concentrating on a spider on the wall opposite it?

Is it absorbing solar energy or simply sleeping? In fact it is doing none of these things. It is in touch with the mothership, an alien vessel orbiting earth. Information is being uploaded to the mothership while Mission details are being downloaded into the little furry alien’s brain.

Those few humans who do seem to understand that Cats are aliens are generally considered totally insane and no-one believes them anyway.

Our alien felines have specially evolved senses allowing them to see the invisible. You have seen it how they just stare into space. You may have a cat that when it’s cold it may sit and stare at the radiator. You know Cats are not stupid …so why do they do it. It’s simple a radiator is a radio receiving aerial used to contact the mother ship.

Cats allow humans to think they are cat-owners in order to infiltrate our homes. So successful are cats at infiltrating our households, that when a cat dies it is almost always replaced by another cat bought by us so they have the line of succession and communication covered so that their spying activities and human controlling activities can continue.

There is a view further in to this post from the Mother ship. This is a typical Cat Suit Yes note Cat Suit not Space Cat suit that is how clever they have been infiltrating out every day laguage

Cat from the Mother Ship

Cat-owners had the most experience of curbing this invasion but failed due to Cat brainwashing. Have you ever stopped to think how you know their names? Cats communicate with you while you don’t even know it. How else would you know their name think about it. How many times have you gone to the back door and the cat is waiting for you? Now why would this cat……. Tom be sitting like this unless he was trying to get better Radio Communication with his mother ship? Only today I noticed him swishing his tail back and forth ..obviously trying to get better contact to pick up radio waves. Think about it why would a cat walk with their tails up all the time…do we walk extending our arms above our heads?

thomas-on-a-post

They are extra-terrestrial, extra-planatary, fourth-dimension creatures and Planet Earth’s only defence against them is NONE. They have even Squeezed into the act with music.

Just as an aside in my days as a DJ in London one of my regular venues was The Crown Pub in Blackheath Village. It was frequented by Squeeze especially Glen Tilbrook and Chris Difford (who is an especially modest bloke).See foot-notes: On the night of one of my shows I was approached in about 1976? to play their first single… I was probably the first “live publicly performing” DJ to do so. I can’ now recall what it was now but I think Cool for Cats came later.

The domestic cat – is attempting world domination. There is no answer to it. Some scientists believe there is Global Warming simply because cats do not like being cold. If we are to survive we must find alternative energy and renewable energy sources otherwise we will not be here to enjoy the benefits these furry aliens bring us; after all we don’t have any space ships to escape to another planet

Somewhat beyond the moon’s orbit, the cat mother ship keeps in contact with its ground forces who can even drive!!

Stray cats are advised of areas where there are likely sucker humans. This accounts for the build up of cat colonies and also for the small tabby cat sitting on your doorstep beaming ‘adopt me’ signals directly into your brain. That’s what happened with this cat, Rosa. Notice the eyes are just starting to become photographic beams.

“Rosa Luxemburg” Using the computer screen to communicate

Before you know it you are feeding it. How did you know what food it liked?

This is a view from the Mother ship hurtling through space

The cats’ home planet expired due to its home star exploding but a number of survivors escaped in spaceships and landed on Earth and allowed themselves to be “domesticated”.

There are some interesting elements and they can be domesticated but they do have a tendency to be highly domineering. Cats not satisfied with controlling us as Cats are perfecting other disguises even trying to use eyes in the back of their heads…while trying to conceal their real identity by using the image of rabbits on their backs. He also has another st of marks on the bottom of each ear….goodness knows what these are for

see the Rabbits eyes ans ears all the better to hear you with

CATS are befriending the most unlikely of other animals they are making peace with the Birds

These cats might look like these. They can be however be looked after and will respond well to home comforts. The Gadaffi Cat below is an example!

Gadaffi Cat This is one Mother you do not want to get on the wrong side

This may have seemed not such a serious post that’s a matter for you…but you have been warned. Normal service will be resumed by my next posting.

Davie

Footnotes:

16 April: The Crown Pub in Blackheath Village was one of my regular DJ Gigs. It was frequented by Squeeze especially Glen Tilbrook and Chris Difford (who is an especially modest bloke). On the night of one of my shows I was approached in about 1976? to play their first single… I was probably the first “live publicly performing” DJ to do so. I can’ now recall what it was now but I think Cool for Cats came later.

This also occurred with Dire Straits after the initial failure of their first release Sultans of Swing where I started playing it in SE London and Deptford just prior to its (second) release…..Prior to that it had been a failure. I ought to mention that my DJ playing could not have been done with the amazing help of “my” Roadie Martin Andrews. Without his help none of my events would have been possible.

It was around this time I also met with a percussionist and song writer Ziggy Addy. Ziggy taught me to play drums and at the time I met him was living on our Pepys Estate in Deptford. His is a sad story of hight the mighty fall as it was Ziggy who wrote all the original hits for Bonny M but in a time of foolishness sold the Royalties right to them to make some quick big cash. When I met Ziggy he was living in poverty with barely enough to eat. He helped us organise the Deptford Festival. Apart from the bands mentioned above another to feature was Steel Pulse. It was at these concerts with some of my lads from Riverside Youth Club we joined up with the Anti Nazi League (ANL) at another event to provide security. We went on to do this and many of the ANL London Concerts and provide security on Demonstrations against the National Front.

Word Press confirmed yesterday and again today 16 April the rogue URLs that were referring visits to my blog and the origins of the spam had been blocked. Since I posted my suspicions here last week and identified those who I thought were behind it all the spamming stopped the same day just about. The same applies to my home email where all the spam stopped at the same time…co-incidence?

15 April update: It really is amazing that since going public again about the spam above and mentioning reporting the matter to ACMA yesterday on twitter all the spam to my email suddenly stopped too……another co-incidence?

16 April updated:Legal issue continues; just biding time we’re pretty confident and cool with everything. Slowly putting the jigsaw of evidence together so the other side’s delaying tactics mean we get more time to gather evidence to cover all bases. I keep stumbling upon evidence that only makes the case stronger so their delays are working in our favour. Got another “little” piece of evidence from an unexpected quarter yesterday …..that was a perfect bonus. Something I have learned from this is just how people you would consider solid with the other side are actually empathetic to us and are happy to give unsolicited inside knowledge. Nice

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Posted in Cats in Space, Pets, Popular musisc, Uncategorized | Tags: Blues, cats, Family Law, Gadaffi, Music

Posted by: daviemacdonald | April 7, 2011

Standby at the CrossRoads 2010

Just a Little STANDBY something while I complete some other stuff. Truth is I have also lost my review notes of Crossroads 10“Bum” 🙂

April 8 EST 6.20 This is a work in progress so keep coming back to check for updates

This will knock you out. Just an example of how Blues Music transcends generations, backgrounds and Race. Bloody well enjoy see you back here very soon…maybe later today

Davie

Cross Roads 2010

First just to get rocking “Going Down” Pino Daniele, Joe Bonamassa, Robert Randolph and The Family Band. Great slide guitar from Robert Randolf and you get a glimpse of Joe Bonamassa who appears at the Enmore NewTown in May. This is a battle beween Steel slide Guitar (Robert Randolf) and classic Blues Guitar ( Joe Bonamassa)

Vince Gill with Alvin Lee show the Blues Country roots with a tight performance….. ya ho ah feel ya dam good with the “twang” factor.

Jonny Lang Ronnie Wood Buddy Guy “Miss You” an old Stones piece. Ronnie Wood unfortunately shows why he is a nice chap but also why he is only an average rhythm Guitar Player in this sort of company his limitations are very apparent. Jonny Lang shows why he is the talent he is while Buddy Guy shows he is the Master especially when he breaks a string and is immediately able to make a guitar then brought on for him and loaned by Hubert Sumlin sing out.

At 73, Guy has you gasping in awe with his boldly dissonant guitar-playing, combined with a personality that epitomized Ladish-boy mischief and potency. Guy turned on his mega-watt smile and the audience was his for the taking.

The elder statesmen ARE treated like Kings. Hubert Sumlin played with an oxygen tank at his side helping him breathe. Just now I havent found a clip from the DVD that s suitable but keep coming back for I sure I will. Talking of checking back do see the other reviews because you may have missed the music clips that sit there now.

First up we have 5 long days followed by Miss you

Jeff Beck with another wild Bass player…Rhonda Smith played for 9 years with Prince brought a funk feel to her instrumentation and take notice of the valve amplifiers.

John Mayer at his funky best

Eric Clapton I shot the Sheriff at his absolute best

And to finish Jeff Beck “Nessun Dorma” Check out the Electric Bass with Rhonda Smith

Just to spoil you for choice I decided to include this from CrossRoads 2007 though it isn’t on the DVD

Footnote:

A musical bonus a nice way wat to say goodby for now Hope you are enjoying the ride on the escalator?

Jeff Beck from Crossroads 2007 with Tal Wikenlfeld plays “a day in the life”

More attacks with spam this time from Texas but the filter does its job and the spammers have been reported. I like to think the CIA are pissed at me for bringing you a minority truth on Libya through this blog and twitter and Tweets on Cote d’Ivoire (if you follow me…though I have been a bit quiet this week) But…… is the likely truth (about the spam that- is) that curiousmint aka curiouslyminty aka Amanda Green of IBM is orchestrating yet another attack on my site? Perhaps her collaborators are out of control? Who knows…. one can only go on what she wrote in the past to her friends in the US and twitters herself.

Update 9 April re THE above by an amazing “co-incidence” after a week of spam to my blog and immediately after highlighting the spamming above it has stopped even to my personal email which had got a heavy pasting over the past week or so. Thank goodness for spam filters 🙂

Are they really stupid enough to have made an attack a second time? Think about this if you threaten to burn down your neighbour’s house [in writing] and it does indeed burn down within 2 days…you are kinda going to be a person of interest. Along with the ISPs it was reported.

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Posted in Blues, Eric Clapton, Music, Uncategorized | Tags: Blues, Buddy Guy, Crossroad Guitar Festival, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, John Mayer, Rhonda Smith

Posted by: daviemacdonald | April 1, 2011

Tarentino Wine and the Swedish Chef

Blog Stats 73 ….days live 2120 visits …nice 🙂

Today’s Blog about wine follows the Bolognese recipe in the previous post and also includes today a Cheese and bread tray

7th April update Have been very busy (medical stuff) so next post will be up in the next day apologies to those who have come back over the past few days. I would post today but I am off to Care Leavers Australia (CLAN) this afternoon

*Posts that are coming (Crikey he keeps telling us this)

1.An article on the Alien Cats that are taking over the world.

2. For you music buffs you are still going to have to wait for crossroads 2010 concert review. North Africa is just so important

3. Something about my 4 Cats and bruin2

4. This weekend I am going to the Barry Sheen Classic Race Motorcycle meeting so it’s a very hectic weekend coming up. So I’ll have to report on that.

5. Will do another expose on my legal matter. Have a meeting with my lawyer tomorrow (Friday) Things are looking better all the time.

6. Must tie in music of the resistance to Libya as all the North Africa freedom fighter were all supported by Gaddafi.

7.Something I would ask you all in Australia please follow my twitter I know many of you are not twits or tweeps 🙂 but as Libya and the truth emerges you will find that my analysis has been ahead several times the rest of the world. How does he do it you may ask. Just damn hard work and a network of news contacts. Though I have been quiet this week you can always check back on older tweets I have made

Skip the next paragraph if you want to go to the main reason for todays blog post : Food and Wine

8. I have to do another post on Libya and continue to do my best to counter all the misinformation we are being fed. I might even get back here tomorrow and put a very short update here.

1 April 2011 Update first posted to twitter 2 days ago

Mussa Kussa foreign Minister of Libya was expelled from UK 1984 after being implicated in UK Embassy shooting of the same year. He was internal security chief from March 1994-March 2009 when he then became foreign minister. 2 days ago he drove across the border to Tunisia. He then flew out in a Private Swiss registered private jet. With the reversals of last week and the apparent likelihood of Gaddafi finally being overthrown he started to deal with the Coalition. The probability is the Libyan security apparatus was closing in.

However what you can be sure of Yis you will not hear of his shady past from the British PM or foreign Minister Hague. He was working it appears to gain a role in an installed Libyan Government to counter the now recognised threat in the West of the real forces behind the rebels. The rebels pose a massive embarrassment to the US, UK and the French due to the increasing and extreme Islamist control. His ambition is twofold working to gain a role in a new government while at the same time , his neck.

This reminds one of the flight of the Nazis to the West in the final days of the second World War. One might also equate the coalition arms blockade and bombing of civilians in the Spanish Civil War with what is going on now in the Libyan Civil War.

Rumour has it 4000 US marines were poised to land in Tripoli in the event of the Gaddafi government collapsing. This is a lesson from history when the Poles rose up against the Nazis in Warsaw . The US would quickly install a Government friendly to the Wests interest. The danger of course is it would be Iraq all over again or a repeat of the Russians and NATO experience in Afghanistan. The real precedent is the US landing in Lebanon in 1958 to overthrow that Government.

But now to the main post today…….to the wine I recommend for the Bolognese recipe.

Over many years I’ve always had a collection of wine. Initially to be honest as I grew into my early 20s in London I was smitten with the “poshness of being middle class” What utter nonsense but I confess now I was absorbed in to having a reserve of wine.

But first to set the scene

I would buy Reds from Italy Chianti Valpolichella and Borollo a very heavy Red which I loved. This stood me in good stead for the Shiraz and big Reds of Australia. No not Kanagroos but Kanaga rouge 🙂

I bought whites from Germany with Riesling from Sainsbury and I admit to buying Libfrau-wine and Blue Nunn. It was cheap and it tasted okay back then for an unsophisticated palate.

From France French Burgundy and Bordeaux

May be a Spanish Rioja,

And the occasional Wallaby white or Kanga rouge

All in all my wine stash then would amount to then about a dozen to a dozen and a half bottles.

Having a large wine collection became an obsession of showing off I think and a demonstration of how I had made it in Australia after arriving here with just $43. The reality was I was just probably being rather snobbish, but it was always exciting having wines to hand to open at whim along with my music collection. I remember with my friend Dawn exploring Sainsburys in Lewisham for a bottle or two of wine to try going to a place in Greenwich where we bought Australian wine and where I got my introduction to Australian beer KB was the favourite at the time..

I am not really a wine snob ( I hope) because one of the challenges that I used to set my self was to place a dollar limit of the price of a bottle of wine. For many years I set the limit to just $16. This is as recent as a few years back and to be frank after a recent trip to Kemeneys I’m still at it. 🙂

Occasionally I would enter into the realms of more expensive wines and I especially loved the rarefied atmosphere of French Champagnes. The beading is always so much finer than the Australian liquid even those under supervision of the French Houses like Moet. Yes you do pronounce it with a T. I just love it. Kemenys is a great place to explore and one of the great things returning to Sydney is I have been able to re-new my acquaintances there.

Though over the years my ability to metabolize alcohol has diminished greatly to the point that today I can only manage one glass with a meal I still enjoy the taste of wine. When I lived in Canberra I had just about stopped any wine consumption.

Because I rarely drank say over the past 2 years I rarely checked the cellar stock that I brought with me.

Then it was over 100 bottles. It contained all sorts of styles. I probably always indulged with a dozen bottles of superb value French wine to just impress visitors from Kemeniys. In the later 6 months of my stay and as I worked most evenings I didn’t notice the precious liquid was being exchanged for some soda pop from Canberra.

This is the wine rack empty after it was cleared it out when I left

Maybe I judge it too harshly but looking at what I found myself owning by the time I got to Sydney the style of the label hardly inspired confidence in the bottle contents. Frankly they look like they were designed round Granny’s barn yard kitchen table. I am yet to try any.

I only discovered this grandiose theft when I moved recently and finally unpacked my precious liquid. It would seem *someone X had been knocking off much of my good Red wine and replacing it this stuff.

This is my new wine Cellar. The picture is not very good and wasn’t taken for the purpose on this posting.

workshop-cellar

The whites and replaced French Champagne are in the Aussie Beer Fridge..Which not only contains the wine but soda water to mix with Ginger beer cordial and dozens of Dark chocolate Magnums?

It seems that “a friend” had indeed been nicking the good stuff; that is the quality Australian the French champagne and French reds to indulge in their passion for showing off their amazing narcissistic generosity to give away or use “other people’s belongings”. No doubt to impress her new “namby pamby hoyty toyty lefty petite bourgeois social do gooders”. Oh how I enjoyed writing that. Oh the ego; healthy as it is keep it in check Davie boy.

Seems a bit of “larceny” is not just confined to the fantasy of Sherwood forest and 4 naughty little working class boys munching on a few chocolate bars see previous post . The condition it seems afflicts not only 7-8 years olds but even some of the highest paid 50-year-old executives of Global Technology Giants IBM.

Okay so to my wine recommendations. I am no expert just an amateur. I won’t try to impress with writing some over the top description Like : “has elements of squashed peaches with the overtones of honey that has been pressed through an old sock leaving an after taste of sour wild berries and bitter cooking chocolate”

Bread Cheese and Wine

I looked at the tasting notes and thought what a lot of crap. I’ll just say good, bad, fantastic whatever. In fact it wont be bad so we can lose that right away. I’m going to include a bread a cheese table too. Nothing to flash but imagine how easy this cheese and dip board is to put together.

The following pictures were hurriedly thought off only because I wanted a raison detre to tell you about a terrific Farmers Market on Sydney’s North Shore (French’s Forest) I have found.

Farmers Market French’s Forest Bread Stall

Chilli Bread

ciabatta loaf

But back to the wine:

1. Here is one of my all times favourite wines. It comes from Evans a Tate called Gnangara Shiraz (pronounced Bungarra). When I bought this it cost just $14 I have 1999 and 2002 I did have some 2000 but that has disappeared. It is a fantastic drop. If you find any snap it up. You will not be disappointed. People will marvel at you talent finding a wine so inexpensive

5 stars

2. 1999 Rouge Homme Shiraz Cabernet this is absolutely fabulous It’s inexpensive cost $19 when I bought it in 2004. This is very round and soft superb A Guzzlers delight

5 Stars

3 In the group of 3 is 2002 Metala Shiraz Cabernet It’s a big dense wine. I was introduced to this by my friend Carl one of my regular coffee buddies 5 or so years ago. Costs about $23

4 Stars

Wine for Bolognese

4. Next to it is which is a 1997 Hermitage Rod Shiraz; which is what I actually had with the meal. Oh my terrific cost $30 odd but it is gorgeous to drink…. I actually had 2 glasses. It is a blend od wine from th Adelaide Plains and the Hunter Valley.

4 Stars due to expense

More Wine for Italian

5. 2002 Hanging Rock Shiraz which I had a few weeks back A Victorian wine rich smooth and bit Oaky (dokey)

3Stars

6. 1998 Kingston Reserve Petit Verdot grape. The Bottle just looks so classy Gold Medal sucks me in every time So included it here. Though I haven’t drunk it yet its is one I am looking forward to opening .

Must be 5 for the bottle I am such a sucker a sucker

The cheese board is nothing special here but this takes just 5 minutes to put together. At the time I had just ordinary Cheeses in the fridge but on the platter the Bread is what makes the difference and it all comes to life; and wonder white just wont quite do so here we have a German Chilli Bread. Really soft and moist You would have to be carefull how you keep it as I imagine it might be prone to mould.

Bread Cheese and Wine

Got the bread from this stall at French’s Forest Sunday. At the time it was already 12.30 so the stalls were packing up but this chap was still there. One of the things I knew I would mis in Canberra was Mitchell markets At last I’ve found a very good substitute. I think it is probably better that Eveleigh markets.

Here are some more closes up of the bread

German Bread

The cheeses here are: (nothing super special)

A round of Jindi Brie excellent I have liked this for ages. There is a triple cream version both are smooth and ideally you must consume when they are not to young but not over ripe either

Jindi product brie and camembert are less costly than saya competitor King Island and are arguably superior. Remember I am not setting myself up here as an expert just an ordinary citizen sharing my experience

Aldi Camembert this the emporium selection this is the less expensive one They also have a more select style both are inexpensive when compared to the local deli or even Coles or Woolworths.

A piece of vintage cheddar I like something with a bit of bite. Cheese as we all know really enhances the taste experience of a good full-bodied Red wine.

Some more cheese

To the left is an organic soft cheese that will take some time to ripen so be patient and persevere with it is not costly and really is quite good. It called Nuage Blanc by Paris Creek Farm Adelaide. When ripe its terrific. It got a Gold medal at the Adelaide show last year. As said before I’m a sucker for Gold Medals. In the rear is a huge tub of Feta which is just like a good Feta. It only cost $17

To the right on the board is a piece of French cheese made from unpasteurised milk. called Comte @ $65 Kg. Frankly it is a great disappointment ; it simply tasted flat and dull.

On the tray there are a variety of dips Capsicum Basil, Coriander, Olive and Feta etc etc; the types are many. Often for the tray I’ll buy some Nan Bread. To date the best I have found seems to be Mission.

Dribble a small amount of Olive Oil into a non stick pan. Drop a piece of the Nan into the pan to briefly flash “fry”. Olive oil gives it a great aroma. Tear a quarter and either spread some of one of the dips and get your laughing gear round that. Alternatively try putting a slice of soft cheese in the middle of a piece od Nan and folding it over and then taking a bite. It’s a great a taste and texture sensation. Try it

naan

Okay where to get the cheese? I get it from anywhere but I am thankful to have found a replacement for Mart Deli in Fyshwick Canberra You will see that many of the items I have displayed are from Aldi or Coles or Woollies. But last weekend I reconnected with Parisis on Dover Road Rose Bay.

Close up of Cheese Counter

Finally a novel way to drink wine Tarantino and Clooney in ‘From Dusk untill Dawn’ Salam Hayek lap dance. Music by Tito and Tarantula

Everything is food If you would like to see something lighthearted then follow this link I hope it works

So that’s it folks

On the legal front I wrote to the International Humans rights Lawyer to ask just what she thought she wa s doing defaming me online especially one who has chosen a particular humanitarian area of international Law. We will see what happens. I will slowly knock all of the miscreants off. It’s interesting that since they all have viewed this blog..and they have… not one has had the courage of their convictions to step forward and back themselves.

They wrote some pretty rude stuff in complete and total ignorance of me and who I am. Our human rights lawyer may step forward yet ..even with a denial. But life wasn’t meant to be easy. Tomorrow is with my lawyer..there is no rush.

Cheers now Davie

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Posted in Food, Libya, Music, No Fly Zone, Politics, Uncategorized, Wine | Tags: Bolognese Recipe, Crossroad Guitar Festival, Family Law, Legal

Posted by: daviemacdonald | March 26, 2011

Slow Food Fast and Music to Last

Stop Press 30 March : The follow up to this post with the wine review will be posted tomorrow. Busy couple of days with Hospital visits since posting the following article.

Today I wanted to take a rest from the Political and reporting my view of the events in Libya and North Africa.

So today my first real effort on the theme of Slow Food for Fast people 🙂

This is the Bolognese Recipe I have been promising from Day one. I have been using this recipe for well over 35 years. unfortunately in the past 5 I probably only made it half a dozen times. In the past 6 months I am back to full form cooking and have probably recreated this dish I calculate at least a dozen times.

Site Stats: I am very chuffed to say that after just 9 weeks (63 days) from the “get-go” of this blog and allowing for some 60 rogue hits; 1799 visits have been made. This is an average of over 28 per day. Not all are “unique visitors” I have no idea if this is good or bad but I feel good about it as some of the posts written were rushed because I wanted to pose alternative views and see them read and hopefully understood.

As I missed writing something in celebration for International Women’s Day (IWD)and I still do want to post something on the positive role woman have made to the development of the world. Today I thought this might go some way as Part 1 as my celebration of the importance that woman play in our daily lives.

Today I wanted to focus on the less political feel good stuff.

However I do want to dedicate the post today to the following women who have played such an important part in my life and also to Emily’s List. I don’t list them in importance but the 2 who must take pride of place at the head of my list are Sister Eva Booker my house Mother in the children’s home and my real Mother. They and the other women I mention were all simply caring ordinary women, no-one posh, no-one superior, all lived or still live real lives and without pretension.

Before moving on I wanted to share some music today by woman who just plain ( actually when you hear them sing see their passion they are most beautiful They are simple who are great talents who have come to light through the hard way.

The First is Mary Byrnes who I only stumbled upon this morning and after hearing her story I thought she would be the perfect introduction to my post today

She appeared last year on the X factor. Mary works at a TESCO Apparently always sings at the tills – to the point that the staff keep telling her to shut up! Here she is to live her dream. I just love her simplicity.

Of Sister Eva Booker I have recently found a more recent picture who I believe is her in addition the couple I previously shown here. I wait anxiously if my old family get in touch only to tell me it is another Sister from the NCH. Sister Eva who looked after me at the NCH for 4 years I will always remember her but I struggle with the disappointment as I know the memory fades and is supplanted by less reliable recall by my memory.

Sister Eva 1960s

My Mother here with her Cat Gussy It must be from her genes that my love of cats comes. My cats have given me much joy and sadly is always followed by much sorrow. Why do we do that to ourselves as we know eventually it ends in tears?

The honour role is:

Mrs Woodcock of Manor Road Harpenden. My first Foster Mother for almost a year off and on who juggled her family with me. My Father also did his bit throughout looking after 2 other children

Mrs Woodcock’s house

Mrs Marshall who looked after me when I was 8/9 when my Mother was hospitalised again.

Mrs Marshalls house with Blue door

Mrs Collier when I was 9 and 10.who had a Beagle dog called Chumley She looked after me when my mother was ever away. Her son Damien lives in Australia somewhere

Mrs Colliers

The Mitchells when I was 12 or 13. Would have the pleasure of my company when my Mother was away but I was less inclined to be away from my own home

My half Sister Frances who always gave me lovely baths while she lived with us and once smuggled food to me when I was shut in my room for punishment once She left home when she was 16 or 17. She was to persuade and come and extract me from the Folly of the French Foreign Legion later. I wasn’t very good at French anyway.

At 15/16 Mrs Parker and her husband when I got into an alleged physical misunderstanding with not so local constables. They helped with persuading my parents I was worth defending. Incidentally once persuaded by her they with my Father helped by making sure I had the best lawyers. This firm was to give me my break later by taking me on as a junior clerk which in effect had the key duty of making everybody cups of tea; I was a “Tea Boy” The barrister Michael Beckman QC who dealt with my matter also was part of the defence team for some rather too well-known East End London villains (twins). This is the Magistrates Court.

Greenwich Magistrates Court

On left building boarded up : My Solicitors & my 1st job

When my Mother died of great support and help was a friend of mine Dawn. The amount of time and effort she put into coming from the other side of the London to pick me up from the Airport trying to juggle time needed for her own family warrants special mention. We lost contact after my move to Canberra. I think this is a suitable piece of music. There is another version recorded on the Jules Holland show but some how this touches the spot just a bit more. A little flat at the start but it is fantastic. ooooooooh….oooooooooh Enjoy. Watch the video and you will understand the ooooooohs

Coming right up to date I think it is important to mention again the women who got behind me with active help or simply listening and encouraging me when they found me ill and homeless last year. I have not included family names to save any embarrassment

You may know some many are from Emily’s List:

From Canberra: Eva C, Carolyne S, Donna B, Sandy T, Patricia H, Barbara, P Mary W

From Sydney: Pamela S, Pam K,. & Toni

A bed a refuge from Homelessness

So now it is recipe time

What we need are Ingredients:

Butter

Bacon 3 rashers

2 Large Onions

Garlic Cloves

Fresh Chillies ( keep some frozen) or Jar of chilli sauce or flakes

1 kg Lean Minced Beef (this could be enough for several meals). The sauce improves with time.

Chicken Livers (mug of chicken stock)

I standard small tine of tomato puree

Some Olive Paste or Olives

150 grams of Spaghetti per person?

Parmesan Cheese

Chop the onions. No tips how to stop the tears I’ve tried everything from matches in the teeth…(encouraging breathing only through the mouth) under water or the most successful is swimming goggles J Now I should have said do these before the onions because if there are tears are flowing the worst thing you might do unthinkingly is to rub your eyes…Oh dear …you’ll be sorry

Chop some fresh Chili and dice the bacon. See the goggles are quite a good idea

Chop the Chili

What else. Let’s get the mince …what we don’t have any… Ooops a quick trip to the super market

Oh man look at those GAZ rings yippee. I had been stuck with electric for the past three and a half years.

So its lift off recipe in action; So pour some virgin Olive oil or melt some Butter or both in a large fry pan.. a non stick is quite a good idea.

Drop in the onions and start to fry. Next drop in the chopped diced bacon ( 2 or 3 rashers) I have absolutely no idea what this does the flavour but I have been doing this for 40 odd years. In or out I have no doubt it works.

onions

Continue for about 10 mins remember to keep tossing and stirring with the spatula…don’t want anything burnt do we?

Now is when I add the chopped and crushed garlic. At least a good couple of cloves. Later in the sauce I like to find a piece of sliced garlic for that garlic hit; WOW. It’s always a laugh to see your guests look uncomfortable knowing that are about to chomp in to a piece too.

Add the mince meat or the diced steak and cook for 2-4 mins constantly stirring. I actually do it for as long as I feel I need too.

browning-meat

I tend to add some salt now but like anybody I forget so I may have to add it later. There is no precision here This pure art form.

I then had a little tin of tomato puree. Stir it all together.

I then add the cheat mix J A tin of or bottle of sauce I’ll generally use Aldi Organic. Traditional with Basil and Garlic. This is used just a base.

Cheat mix sauce:-)

More stirring. Then add a tin or 2 of Organic Roma tomatoes (99c from Aldi …..Bargain)

Roma tomato-tin

More stirring in

You could drop in the chili either fresh or pre- chopped bottled. You can use dry Chili flakes which is great but this can be a tad dodgy if you over do the chili. I find Chili creates a nice depth of flavour with just a touch of heat. Don’t over do; it remember we are eating Italian not Indian.

tomato

I then add some fresh tomatoes…just so I can feel good that I used something fresh for the purists out there. But remember this is slow food done fast for people who need to go slow and not so fast.

More stirring until the mixture boils. Now turn the heat to simmer…Don’t scorch.

This is also a very good time to start clearing the knives bottles cutting boards away and start wiping down the benches. Do this for about 30 mins the simmering that is or for however long you think you should.

This is the artistic bit.

This is the time when enhance the flavour with all the little refinements. We’re going to add a bit of this and a bit of that. Actually this is quite hit and miss….but it all works.

Some Olive Paste or Olives chopped or whole if you have them

So now in with some Fresh Basil (I often keep a bunch in the freezer ) so if I don’t have fresh I’ll get that and break off some leaves. I’m sure there is a good reason you shouldn’t use frozen but it works for me so it should work for you.

Now for some basil and oregano….

Good idea to get a teaspoon and do the taste test…If you find something lacking a dash more salt perhaps might do the trick.

taste test

If it tastes a bit too heavy (and this is a very rich sauce) I will squeeze half a lemon. This gives it a nice lift at the high-end of the taste spectrum.Sometimes I might use bottle lemon juice. Just give the bottle a bloody good squeeze as you circle the pan with it.

Squeeze that lemon

If you find you don’t have any lemon you can use an orange..Interesting touch you think? The other week I even experimented with peach juice from a bottle of peaches I was tucking into before starting this exercise….”Is he serious”? Yes he is!! I like to experiment and have fun cooking; and guess what it tasted just fine.

Now we need the spaghetti. Umm how much Oh it just comes down to a good guess.

I use a variety of spaghetti. But it doesn’t have to be expensive Aldi organic Woolworth Select is fine.

You need the large cooking pot fill with water so the spaghetti will be covered by the water. Bring the water to the boil I always drop in some olive oil so the pasta will be covered and non sticky when the water is drained.

I then drop a knob of butter in the bottom of the serving bowls.

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese nothing flash just the pre shredded stuff from the delicatessen or supermarket .

Get Stuck in and enjoy please.

Oh yum

Oh and the kitchen …nice and clean

And to finish off today I though I would use some music from Mary Byrne Its a Mans World...”but it would nothing without….” Mary had been battling an illness the week before, which couldn’t have come at a worse time for the 50-year-old Tesco worker. Will her illness stop her from making her performance unforgettable, or will she manage to rise above it? You be the judge!

Now what wine ? I’ll finish this tomorrow with some suggestions …so I’ll have to get tasting for you all now ha ha The results will be here tomorrow.

Other news briefly:

This week I reconnected with Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN). My original connection was through sponsoring for the hosting of the website when launched in 2002. I lost contact through my own pursuits to find all my care records in the UK. However after the apology given to the “forgotten ones” all those children who were shipped from the UK to Australia and Canada until the 60s I belive it is time to persuade the Australian, British and Canadian Governments to consider the impact those removals of all those children had on their “families” of other children [left behind] in care who had seen their proxy family members just disappear for ever. It is time to consider the “left behind or stranded ones”

I have a meeting to start the first steps to this with CLAN and Leonie Sheedy the President who I was touched to find out still remembered me though we had never actually met next Monday week. I am mindful that once Senator Kate Lundy offered to help and that Malcolm Turnbull is a recent patron of CLAN. I hope I will be able to gather their help.

No Fear: The legal matter update: After finally receiving a reply from the other side’s solicitors to one of our many requests to get a simple response to “please advise do you act for so and so ” so we can serve documents they have gone to ground again. According to our information their advice to their client was to “starve [us] of attention or response”…One imagines this is just to attempt force expenditure by us. If this is indeed the strategy we will do so. Perhaps we will add sooner an action for Back Yard defamation against the X Ms senior executive of a Global Technology Giant.

One should be aware its bad enough to denigrate any individual like [me] on the internet but it will be considered by some it is equally or even more stupid to regularly over a period of several years continue to criticise ones senior managers of improper workplace conduct and generally run down work colleagues and family in public on [your] blog and twitter.

We have been very patient for over 6 months but with my new legal team the time approaches for some action. The guerrilla campaign is just beginning.

People need to be a little Smarter just like IBM.

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Posted in Food, Music, Popular musisc, Social comment, Uncategorized | Tags: Bolognese Recipe, Children in Care, Fast Food Slow People, Legal, property rights

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